Epidemiological features of children mortality in the area covered by Shahid Beheshti university of medical sciences in 2012

Background and Aim: Under 5-years mortality year is one of the most important indicators of development and health in the countries. Therefore, generating accurate picture of child mortality in order to evaluate the death causes and identifying the avoidable factors for designing the interventions and preventing similar death is necessary. The present study aimed to investigate the causes of deaths in 1 to 59 months children in the area covered by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in 2012. Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study that conducted from March 2012 to March 2013, all of 1 to 59 months children deaths in the area covered by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences were investigated. Required data was extracted from registration forms of the child health office of ministry of health and medical education. Results: The total number of deaths in 1 to 59 months children was 383. The highest frequency of death was observed in the children who aged between 1 to 12 months (57.8%). More than half of the children who died were boy (52.5%). Totally, the most common causes of death were congenital and chromosomal abnormalities (17.5%), injuries (15.4%) and cancers (11.2%). Conclusion: Based on the results, designing interventions such as genetic counseling in high risk couples, training of the parent and children for prevention of injuries and public awareness about the warning symptom of the cancers and respiratory system disease in order to reduce the children deaths is essential