Transition to Scale of an Integrated Program of Nutritional Care and Psychosocial Stimulation to Improve Malnourished Children's Development in Bangladesh

Over 200 million children <5 yrs do not reach their full potential due to poor nutrition and inadequate cognitive stimulation. Nutritional Care (NC) alone is insufficient to correct developmental deficit in malnourished children and psychosocial stimulation (PS) is also required.

Objectives:

1. Pilot two intervention methods and different delivery models of providing NC+PS to refine the intervention and identify any difficulties.
2. Conduct a cluster randomized controlled trial (CRCT) of NC+PS on malnourished children.
3. Pilot the feasibility of providing NC+PS to groups of mothers instead of individuals through a quasi-experimental design.

Methods: The study consists of 3 different sub-studies:

1. The pilot will be a qualitative study conducted in 10 Community Clinics (CCs) involving 40 children (aged 6-33 months) per CC. Mothers and children will attend the clinic every 2 weeks for an hour play session in groups of 2 or 6. We will explore different delivery models and assess problems through focus group discussions with parents and staff of the CCs.
2. For the CRCT we will survey all children aged 6-24 mo in 140 CCs to identify those malnourished. We will then randomize the CCs to NC+PS or control, randomly select 40 children from each CC and evaluate a random subsample of 6 children from each of the CCs using anthropometry, Bayley-III, Wolke's behavior rating and family care indicators (FCI) at baseline and endline.
3. The quasi experimental study will be conducted in 10 CCs randomized to group-intervention or control with 40 mothers and children per CC. Mothers will come to the CCs in groups of 6 with their children every fortnight. The children will be tested at the beginning and after 12 months using the same tools in the main study.