Caregivers’ experiences and practices for malnourished children undergoing tuberculosis treatment in Eswatini

Health SA Gesondheid

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Caregivers’ experiences and practices for malnourished children undergoing tuberculosis treatment in Eswatini
 
Creator Tsabedze, Bhekisisa S. Habedi, Debbie S.K.
 
Subject Health and nursing caregivers; experiences; malnourished children; practices; tuberculosis treatment.
Description Background: Eswatini is one of the countries affected by malnutrition and tuberculosis (TB) and some cases remained untreated. These two conditions are major public health problems.Aim: This study aimed to explore and describe caregivers’ experiences and practices of children’s nutrition during treatment.Setting: Baylor College of Nursing Children’s Foundation – Eswatini (BCMCF-SD).Methods: A qualitative study following a narrative design used purposive sampling to identify 12 caregivers of malnourished children and informed consent obtained. In-depth interview used semi-structured interview guide and digital voice recorder. Field notes were taken, transcribed, translated and analysed using NVivo version 11.Results: Two themes emerged as home’s nutritional situation and health facility’s nutritional support. The study found that most of the caregivers gave children unbalanced diet, while those less than a year were mixed-fed. Some caregivers reported experience of lost breadwinners, unemployment and high number of children than what the family could afford. The caregivers’ practices around food by prescription included inadequate supply of the ready-to-use therapeutic food and sharing of prescribed food supplies with other healthy children.Conclusion: During treatment, children’s caregivers need short health education and support. The Ministry of Health in Eswatini should consider using some comic books to guide that. Moreover, upscale vocational training promotes entrepreneurship and agricultural activities.Contribution: Association of malnutrition and TB outcomes has provided evidence-based information for more comprehensive integration between nutrition programmes and tuberculosis programmes. The study’s findings contributed to the growing body of knowledge about the association between malnutrition and diagnosed drug-susceptible TB among children aged from 0 – 15 years.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor
Date 2024-04-05
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Qualitative research
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/hsag.v29i0.2349
 
Source Health SA Gesondheid; Vol 29 (2024); 8 pages 2071-9736 1025-9848
 
Language eng
 
Relation
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https://hsag.co.za/index.php/hsag/article/view/2349/html https://hsag.co.za/index.php/hsag/article/view/2349/epub https://hsag.co.za/index.php/hsag/article/view/2349/xml https://hsag.co.za/index.php/hsag/article/view/2349/pdf
 
Coverage Swaziland 2019-2020 Caregivers of malnourished TB children above 21 years of age
Rights Copyright (c) 2024 Bhekisisa S. Tsabedze, Debbie S.K. Habedi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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