Analysis of Integrated Management of Acute Malnutrition (IMAM) dataset 2013 to 2018: A secondary dataset analysis

Background Malnutrition remains the most common cause of morbidity and mortality in children under the age of 5 years. In Zimbabwe nearly 1 in every 3 children is malnourished. Child nutrition in the country is affected by inadequate knowledge among mothers and caregivers on appropriate diets especially in the first 1000 days of life. Weak coordination and inadequate resources for high impact nutrition interventions also affect nutrition in children. Methods A descriptive cross sectional study was conducted on records from January 2013 to December 2018. All malnourished patients admitted into Community based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) at health facilities in, with a diagnosis of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) from January 2013 December 2018 as reported in the DHIS2 were included in the study. We retrieved the dataset from the DHIS2 to the excel sheet and analysed the data to come up with graphs demonstrating trends in management of acute malnutrition. Results The 6-59 months age-group constitute the group with the highest cases of admission into the CMAM program. The 0-5 months age-group showed the least number of cases admitted and had the lowest HIV positivity over the period under review. The highest treatment outcome for HIV positive patients was death rate. Highest number of cases of malnutrition were admitted in 2016.The District failed to meet sphere standard default and cure rate throughout the period under review. Conclusion The treatment outcomes of this study showed that HIV negative had better treatment outcomes than HIV positive. The age group 6 to 59 months had the highest number of cases admitted into CMAM program.The implementation of an effective public health approach for addressing malnutrition require a holistic approach that incorporates preventive measures such as poverty reduction, hygiene promotion, clean water, prevention of prenatal macronutrient and micronutrient deficiencies, and the promotion of age appropriate foods and feeding practices for infants and young children. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement This study did not receive any funding ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present work are contained in the manuscript