Causes of Death in Children Aged 1-59 Months in Neyshabur City from 2015 to 2019

The mortality rate of children under 5 years is one of the important indicators of health development. Investigating child mortality to identify the causes and design preventable interventions for similar deaths is one of the most important strategies to promote children's health.

This study aimed to determine the causes of death of children aged 1-59 months covered by the Faculty of Medical Sciences of Neishabur, Neyshabur, Iran, from 2015-2019.

In this descriptive cross-sectional study, we analyzed the data of the death files of 112 children aged 1-59 months in Neyshabur from 2015-2019. Required data were extracted from registration forms of the Child Health Office of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education of Iran. Data analyses were performed in SPSS-21 software by descriptive and analytical statistics at a significant level of 0.05.

The results showed that the mortality rate of children increased by 2.4% during the study period. The main causes of death in children were congenital anomalies (32.14%), respiratory system diseases and chronic diseases (16.96%), non-traffic accidents (12.5%), and road traffic accidents (9.8%) in descending order. Statistical analysis showed that there was a significant relationship between children's age and their death due to road traffic accidents and non-traffic accidents (P<0.05).

Since congenital and anomalies chromosomal abnormalities were the leading causes of death in children in this study, it seems that most of these deaths can be preventable by implementing intervention programs, such as genetic counseling and screening exams during pregnancy.