The term "defaulter" implies some sort of deficit in the beneficiary / carer. It definitely requires intentionality on the part of beneficiary / carer. In the case you outline above, however, the deficit is in the program. These patient came for care and were turned away because the program could not provide the care. You could say that the program was defaulting. I think you need a special category (turned away due to RUTF stock-outs) to record and report this particular type of program failure. The other option is to report that there was no program (no RUTF = no program) and record these as "premature discharge at unplanned program closure". Any help?

I agree with Mark,if the beneficiaries have been requested not to come to the centers because of shortages, they shouldn't be counted as defaulters. There should be in your discharges columns, a column called : Discharged "Others" and this is where these cases should fall in (with a thorough explanation in your narrative) . However,usually there is an increase of defaulters when there is a prolonged shortages and in this case, you can consider them defaulters if they are the one deciding not to visit the health centers anymore but it is important to mention in your analysis that the increased number of defaulters is linked to the shortage of SFP commodities. What I would advise is to anyway find a way to follow these beneficiaries in a weekly or at least bi-monthly basis (if impossible to ask them to come to the centers , then they should be visited at home), indeed depending on the context you are working in, there is a big chance that some of these children might become severely malnurished if they don't receive any supplementation. So, they should be seen to check their anthropometric measurements and health condition even if they don't receive any supplementary ration (which is why home visits might be more appropriate)... Hope this helps