Using an Infant Child Feeding Index to Assess Nutritional Status in Children under 5 Years Living in Rural Area, Ferlo, Senegal

Abstract

Introduction: The complementary diet of young children breastfed constitutes one of the main determinants of their health in the developing world. The use of composite dietary indicators has long been used and described in the literature. In a context of food insecurity, these indicators could be used to improve the nutritional status of children. The main of this study is to study the use of a composite index of food, the Infant Child Feeding index (ICFI) comparing it with the food practices and modalities of anthropometric growth in children living in semi-arid Sahel rural country part in Senegal. Materials and methods: We made a transversal study with analytical aim in May 2017 in Widou Thiengholi. The sampling was carried out according to the Schwartz formula with the basis of calculation the malnutrition rate in Linguere (12.3% according to SMART 2012). Thus, 170 children were included in the study. Data analysis was done using R studio version 3.1.3. The anthropometric indicators were analysed using the WHO anthro software. ICFI was calculated using the following components: (1) breastfeeding, (2) dietary diversity, (3) consumption Foods rich in certain micronutrients and (4) frequency of meals. ICFI was compared with food practices and anthropometric indicators. Results: The prevalence of malnutrition, taking into account anthropometric indicators compared to international standards (WHO), is for acute malnutrition (Weight-for-Lenght) of 10%, for wasting (Weight-for-Age) 15.9%, for stunting (Length-for- Age) 15.3%. Regarding breastfeeding, 37% of the children had a delay in breastfeeding. The ICFI score mean in our study was 4.31 ± 1.15. Ninety-two percent (92.9%) of children had a low ICFI. A Low ICFI reflects dietary diversity of children aged 9-11 months (OR=55.71 [9.16-339.16]) and children aged 24-59 months (0.1 [0.02-0.39]). Some socio-economic determinants as (number of people living in the household is more than 15) was linked with low ICFI (4.58 [1.31-15.95]).ICFI was associated with underweight (WLZ) p=0.03.The specificity (ability for ICFI to recognize normal children were range from 31.2% to 71.2. However sensibility of ICFI is highest for WLZ, specificity is highest for WAZ. The findings of this study show that ICFI is better to predict children suffering of acute malnutrition i.e. underweight (WLZ) with a sensibility of 91.7%. Conclusion: This study shows that ICFI can address the issues of for child feeding practices in African rural area. The ICFI in food insecure area can be a good tool for predict acute malnutrition in a context of fighting against malnutrition.