Background: Stunting, which describes a small height for one’s age, is an indicator of chronic malnutrition. It develops mainly as a result of prolonged food deprivation or a chronic disease or illness. Unintended pregnancies and unplanned births are among the psychological factors that negatively affect the nutritional status of children. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the effects of unintended pregnancies and other family and child characteristics on the nutritional status of children under 5 years old. Methods: A community-based unmatched case-control study was conducted among 302 children (151 cases and 151 controls) 6–59 months old in Wonago town, Gedeo Zone, Southern Ethiopia. The cases were stunted children and the controls were non-stunted children in the study area. The cases were randomly selected from among the stunted children, and the controls were randomly selected from among the non-stunted children. The descriptive characteristics of the respondents were compared using the chi-squared test, and a multivariable logistic regression was used to assess the effects of an unintended pregnancy on stunting, after controlling for the other variables, with a p value of 0.05. Results: The result revealed that unintended pregnancy is found to be among predictors of stunting where children from unintended pregnancy were about three times more likely to be stunted [AOR: 2.62, CI: (1.26, 5.45)]. The other predictors identified in this study were educational status of the father, wealth index of the household and daily meal frequency. From the finding, children from illiterate fathers [AOR: 3.43, CI: (1.04, 11.29)], children from poorer household economic status [AOR: 2.32, CI: (1.20, 4.49)] and children whom their daily meal frequency is below the recommended number of feeding [AOR: 4.50, CI: (1.31, 15.49)] were found to be more stunted. Conclusions: Based on the results of this study, the children born from unintended pregnancies exhibited a significantly higher risk of stunting. Therefore, preventing unintended pregnancy could play a great role in decreasing the risk of stunting in children.

Background: - Mental illness is an important determinant of the quality of life of individuals. The negative attitude and negative beliefs toward mental illness even among health professionals is still persisting and lead to widespread stigma and poor help seeking behavior among people with mental illness. In Ethiopia, there is little research done on assessing the knowledge and attitudes of health professionals and this study will narrow this great gap.Objective: -To assess the knowledge and attitude of health professionals toward mental illness at governmental and private health facilities at Dilla town.Methods: Facility based cross-sectional study design was employed. The data were collected by using self-administered questionnaire with a total of 126 health professionals. Study participants were drawn using a simple random sampling method. Statistics investigation was done by using SPSS version 21. Descriptive statistics & logistic regression was done and the result was discussed and presented by frequency tables, graphs, and charts. Variables with p-value < 0.05 were declared as having substantial association between factors and the outcome variables. THE Result: The level of knowledge on mental illness among health professionals was 43.8%. Regarding Attitude of Health professionals toward mental illness, 59.6% were holding an unfavorable attitude. Respondents who have had high awareness have 0.025 times better attitude than those who have no control group. However, this association is not significant. (AOR=0.025, 95% C.I: 0.035, 0.085). In this study the level of literacy, contact with a mental ill, individual level of qualification, psychiatric training experience, and long duration of working experience have a strong positive impact on the attitude of health professionals to the psychiatric ills.Conclusion and Recommendation: The outcome of the study revealed the studied participants had an apparently unfavorable attitudes regarding psychiatric illness associated with lower levels of literacy. This finding was used as the screening attitude by empowering health professionals regarding their knowledge toward mental illness. Over half of the health professionals held an unfavorable attitude toward mental illness. This gives a direction to do more on emphasizing of developing awareness creation and expanding psychiatric training to empower attitude of health professionals toward mental illness.

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Introduction: Catha edulis (khat) plant is an evergreen tree. In Ethiopia khat (Catha edulis) is commonly used for social and religious purpose. It is widely abused in East Africa in general and in Ethiopia in particular for various purposes. Khat chewing has negative influence on the physical, psychological, physiological and economic well-being of the community. However, only few studies are available on prevalence of khat chewing and its determinants in south Ethiopia. So the aim of this study is to narrow this gap by assessing prevalence of khat chewing and its determinants among adult residents at Dilla town, South West Ethiopia from May 1st-30th 2019. Methods: Quantitative community based cross sectional study was conduct to determine prevalence of khat chewing and associated factors using self-structured interviewer administered questionnaires on a total of 489 sampled participants using two stage sampling method. Descriptive statistics was done to summarize the dependent and independent variables. Data analysis was done by using SPSS version-20. Multiple logistic regression was used to test the association between determinants and chat chewing and P-value of <0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: In this study, the lifetime prevalence of khat chewing was found to be 30.4% while the current prevalence of chewing was 34.3%. Bing male (AOR=3(0.345-0.491), being follower of Muslim religion (Std. β=3.31, 95% C.I: 2.4, 5.82), having friend who chews khat (Std. β=3.91, 95% C.I: 1.53, 4.45) and having family who chews khat (Std. β=1.91, 95% C.I: 1.53, 2.29) were factors independently associated with chewing of khat of respondents Conclusion: One third of the respondents chewed khat in their life and current time. Community based health education should be provided to the people about the adverse effects of khat by invited psychiatric professionals of Dilla university referral hospital. Keywords Dilla; Khat; South Ethiopia; Prevalence; Associated factors; Adult residents