Nutritional Status and Its Association with Recurrent Respiratory Tract Infections in Children Aged 1–5 Years
Submission: 01 November 2025 | Acceptance: 20 December 2025 | Publication: 26 January 2026
1Dr Saba Wamiq, 2Dr Hub E Ali, 3Waqas Ali, 4Dr Umar Tipu, 5Dr Haroon Raja, 6Dr Zamin Abbas
1MBBS, FCPS (Pediatric Medicine) Assistant professor, Department of pediatric medicine, Multan medical and dental college /ibn-e- siena hospital and research Institute Multan, Pakistan
2Assistant professor, Mayo Hospital, Lahore
3Associate Professor, Ghurki Trust Teaching Hospital Lahore
4Assistant Professor, Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad
5Senior Registrar, Shifa International Hospital, Islamabad
6Hayatabad Medical Complex, Peshawar
ABSTRACT:
Background: Recurrent respiratory tract infections (RRTIs) still featured as one of the most prevalent morbidity and hospitalization on the list of the leading causes of morbidity among children under five years of age and in developing countries. It is a notable fact that poor nutritional status has long been identified as the primary cause of immune malfunction, and children were easily susceptible to recurrent infections. Both innate and adaptive immune reactions were also compromised by malnutrition, such as underweight, stunting, and micronutrient deficiencies, and enhanced the occurrence and severity of respiratory diseases. Childhood malnutrition remained to be one of the main national health problems in Pakistan because of poverty, maladaptive feeding habits, ignorance of parents and frequent infectious diseases. Although the RRTIs and malnutrition burden were high, little localized data were obtained that investigated the immediate relationship existence among nutritional status and frequency respiratory tract infections to young children. The aim of this study was hence to investigate the nutritional status of children aged 15 years and also to establish how it is related to the prevalence of recurrent respiratory tract infections.
Aim: This paper was meant to evaluate the nutritional status of children under the age of 5 years and to establish its relationship with frequent respiratory tract infections.
Methods: The Mayo Hospital, Lahore was targeted by a descriptive cross-sectional study that took place during the period of August 2025 up to January 2026. Non-probability consecutive sampling was used to enroll 80 children aged 1-5 years with the history of respiratory tract infection that presented to the pediatric outpatient and inpatient departments. Recurrent respiratory tract infection was considered to be three or more instances of respiratory infections in six months or five or more instances of respiratory infections in one year. The structured questionnaire was used to gather data, which included demographic information, the socioeconomic status, feeding history, immunization status and respiratory infections frequency. The anthropometric data (weight and height) were recorded and nutritional status was examined on the basis of WHO growth standards. Children were classified into normal, underweight, stunted and wasted. The SPSS version 26 was used to analyze the data. The relationship between nutritional status and RRTIs was determined by chi-square test and the p-value of below 0.05 was to be regarded as significant.
Results: Fourty six (57.5) males and 34 (42.5) females constituted a total of 80 children. The overall age of study participants was 3.2 multiplied by +1.1. The children were found to have normal nutritional status (31) and malnutrition (49) respectively. Out of the children that were being malnourished, 22 (27.5) were underweight, 16 (20.0) were stunted and 11 (13.8) were wasted. Malnourished children had a much higher prevalence of recurrent respiratory tract infections (71.4 vs. 32.3) compared with children who were in a normal nutritional condition. Underweight and stunted children recorded more episodes of infections than children who were normally nourished (p = 0.002). Malnutrition and repeated infections were also closely related to poor socioeconomic status, absence of exclusive breastfeeding and incomplete immunization.
Conclusion: The paper found that malnutrition was very high in children aged 15 years to 5 and it had a strong connection with frequent respiratory illnesses. Cases of underweight and stunted children were much at risk of contracting repeated respiratory diseases. Enhanced nutrition status may become an important measure to minimize the cost of frequent respiratory tract infections in young children by improving nutritional quality through the use of early screening, education of parents, and specific nutritional interventions.
Keywords: Pediatric health, Nutritional status, Under-five children, recurrent infection, respiratory tract infections, Pakistan.