events until a fairly accurate age is pinpointed. If that is not
possible, children are selected on the basis of height. Only
children measuring more than 65 cm and less than 110 cm in
tall height were included in the sample.
3.8. Edema
Clinical evaluations of the malnourished children were
undertaken to check the presence of severe protein energy
malnutrition (PEM), which is one of the signs of kwashiorkor.
Thumb pressure was applied to the child's feet simultaneously
for 3 s.16
3.9. Data collection and analysis
Anthropometric body measurements (weight, length/high and
MUAC) for children under 5 years old within households were
collected to assess the growth and development of children.
International and national Sudanese standard methods were
used as indicators for child nutrition status during the
assessment time in the
field. Statistical Package of Social
Sciences (SPSS) v. 15 was used to estimate the frequencies of
descriptive variables (gender, education, income and age),
cross-tabulation was used to
find the relationship between
variables in the study area. To determine the level of
significance, x2 test was used. Socio-economic data were
separately analyzed to avoid data duplication using SPSS.
ENA Smart software programs were used to calculate the
prevalence of severe acute malnutrition and global acute
malnutrition.
3.10. Ethical approval
The study was ethically approved by Khartoum Ministry of
Health Research unit, Sudan and Medical and Health Studies
Board of the University of Khartoum.
4. Results
This cross-sectional community-based descriptive study was
conducted to assess the nutritional status of the children and
the impact of socio-economic characteristics of households in
Khartoum State, Sudan. In total, 505 families (74.0% females
and 26.0% males) and 411 children under 5 years old (52.6%
girls and 47.4% boys) (Table 1) were studied. Most fathers in the
current study either completed their basic education (34.5%) or
were illiterate (32.1%), while 40.6% of mothers completed their
basic education and 35.4% were illiterate (Fig. 1). About 20.9%
of mothers who received their basic education continued