ASSESSMENT OF INFANT MORTALITY RATE (IMR) IN RURAL AREAS OF DISTRICT PESHAWAR: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

Abstract

Objective: To assess infant mortality and to find the burden of infant deaths due to infectious diseases, maternal factors, and vaccination in rural areas of district Peshawar.

Materials and Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study from April 2021 to September 2021 in which 370 women of re­productive age (15-45 years) were selected using structured and open-ended questionnaires through convenient sampling. Results were analyzed using SPSS version 23 for Windows.

Results: Thirty-one infants died in the year 2021 out of 370 giving us an IMR of 83.7 per 1000 live births. Breastfeeding was associated with lower mortality than bottle feeding; exclusive breastfeeding during the first 6 months was quite higher among alive infants (85.5%) as compared to that in the dead (64.5%), while bottle feeding was lower among living infants (14.5%) as compared to the dead (35.5%). Meanwhile, among infectious diseases, ARIs resulted in the most deaths in infants (25.8%), followed by Diarrhea (12.9%) but overall most of the causes were other than these two (seizures, sudden infant death, etc.) accounting for 61.3% of infant deaths. Among the 31 infant deaths, only 8 (25.8%) were fully vaccinated and 23 (74.2%) were non-vaccinated, whereas, out of the 339 alive infants, 229 (67.6%) were fully vaccinated and 110 (32.4%) were not vaccinat­ed at all. Among 31 infants who died, 8 (25.80%) were pre-term and 23 (74.20%) were at-term whereas, out of the 339 alive children, 274 (80.80%) were at-term and 65 (19.20%) were pre-term. The mean age of mothers whose infants were alive was 28.18 years while the mean age of mothers of dead infants was 24.45 years.

Conclusion: High IMR in rural areas of Peshawar is mostly due to preventable causes. With access to Primary Health Care (PHC), Mother Child Health (MCH), and Family planning, it can be significantly reduced