Abstract:
Anaemia is one of the severe public health problems affecting both developing and industrialized countries. In developing countries, an estimated 3.5 billion people are anaemic. Anaemia in children is of particular interest since it impairs their mental, physical, and social development and causes adverse behavioural and cognitive effects resulting in poor school performance and work capacity in later years. The study’s objective was to determine factors associated with anaemia among children under-five in Kisumu County Hospital. Methodology; the study utilized a descriptive cross-sectional study involving 362 caregivers of children under five admitted at Kisumu County Hospital. Systematic selection of the 362 participants and enrolment into the study. Data was collected by administering 392 questionnaires with a response rate of 99.2% response rate. The data was analysed using SPSS version 20 and presented inform of tables, pie charts, and graphs. Results indicate that 51.8% of caregivers were males while 48.2% were females. Anaemia types found were; moderate anaemia 154 (42.9%), severe anaemia 117 (32.6%) and mild anaemia 88 (24. 5%).Majority of the children were aged 0-12 months (30.6%), followed by 13-24 months (28.4%) while least 49-60 months (9.2%). Most of the caregivers (n=169 ,72.8%) had primary education as their highest level of education. In terms of their occupation, most of the caregivers had personal business (55.2%), followed by those in formal employment (15.6%) farming (10.6%) and informal employment (5.2%). Factors associated with poor anaemia management were sickle cell trait (cPR=0.3; 95%C. I [0.15,0.73], p=0.07), iron deficiency (cPR=0.7, 95%C. I [0.46-0.95] p=0.023) and being poor (cPR=0.1, 95%CI; 0.0--; p-value<0.0001). Having more than two children aged less than 5 years (cPR=1.9; 95%C. I [1.33-2.71], p<0.001) and delay in admission to the health facility (cPR=9.9; 95%CI, 5.89-16.74; P-value<0.0001) were associated with good anaemia management. In Conclusion and Recommendation, anaemia causes a high economic burden in children under five in Kisumu County. There is a need to control the comorbidities such as malaria and sickle cell disease and other factors associated with Anaemia such as iron rich food intake. There is also a need to, improve caregiver knowledge on Anaemia management, blood transfusion services, drugs availability and enhance social protection programs through economic empowerment and social insurance cover such National Social Health Insurance Fund for the indigent.
