On Wednesday 6 November at 14:00, Sofine Heilskov defends her PhD dissertation entitled "Skin changes in children under the age of five, hospitalised with Severe Acute Malnutrition".

Malnutrition requiring hospitalization, among children under 5 years of age, remains a major problem globally. Mortality is high and up to 2 out of 10 children die during hospitalisation. If this high mortality is to be lowered, it is necessary to find new treatment strategies to improve hospital management. The acute malnourished children can develop severe wounds and peeling of the skin, among other things. This is a symptom of malnutrition for which the cause is not yet known and for which the World Health Organization's (WHO) treatment guidelines do not yet provide an evidence-based management.

This PhD study is an investigation of skin changes in severe acute malnutrition. Published knowledge is reviewed, nomenclature is established and a scoring tool for clinical documentation of the skin changes is developed through a prospective observatory study. The prognostic effect of the skin changes is investigated and an exploratory study of the immune status of the patient group is included. Finally, a qualitative study of the challenges among health personnel illustrates the use of methods from health anthropology to identify the local agenda within the subject.

The summary is written by the PhD student. 

The defence is public and takes place at the auditorium F201-197/200, F201, Aarhus University Hospital. Please see the press release for more information. 

Contact

PhD student Sofine Heilskov
Mail: soheil@rm.dk 
Phone: 30311649

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