Seval Akgun, Professor, Coskun Bakar, Specialist, IsýL. Irem Budakoglu, Specialist, and Rengin Erdal, Professor. Department of Public Health, Baskent University, School of Medicine, 12. street. 7/8, 06490, Bahcelievler, Ankara, Turkey, 00-90-312-2120434, sevala@baskent-ank.edu.tr

Aim: In this study the status of underweight, stunted, wasting of children were assessed by 3 different methods that were percentile, percent of median and Z score. We accepted Z score method as reference test (gold test), and then the validity analyses of percentile and percent of median results had been done versus Z-score. Results: A study was performed in 300 healthy children under fives. Validity of the percentile and percent of median methods were tested by sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values calculations. Sensitivity indicates how successful the percentile and percent of median methods were in identifying the number of malnourished children, while specificity shows how accurately the percentile and percent of median methods identify the cases that are well nourished. It was determined that the sensitivity and negative predictive value for percentile method versus Z-score among underweights are lower than percent of median method while the positive predictive value and specifity of percentile are higher than percent of median among stunted. For wasted, the percentile method’s sensitivity and negative predictive value are higher and spesifity and positive predictive value are lower than percent of median method. The sensitivity of percentile for underweight is found to be 100.0 %, positive predictive value is 71.4 %, while these rates are 96.5 %, 27.8 % respectively for percent of median. As a conclusion we recommend to use percentile method than percent of median in following the growth and development of children.

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