Knowledge Attitude and Practices of Mothers about Diarrhea in Children under 5 years
Keywords:
Diarrhea, mother, child, attitude, practices, Civil HospitalAbstract
Objective:
To assess the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding diarrhea among mothers of children less than 5 years of age in civil hospital Karachi.
Methodology:
It is a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at Pediatrics ward and OPD Civil HospitalKarachi during July - August 2011. Non-random Convenient sampling was adopted to sample 200 subjects by interviewing mothers after taking their consent. Mothers have at least one child less than 5 years of age were included.
Results:
Mothers' knowledge regarding the causes of diarrhea; contaminated water (17%), eating mud (14%), teething (10%). About signs of dehydration, 40% mothers gave unspecific signs and 26% responded with sunken eye as the only sign while 35% answered two signs (thirst and dry hair/skin). Mothers who knew how to prepare ORS were 80%. Regarding prevention of diarrhea, 15.5% mothers knew to cover food and 14.5% to boil water. Regarding health care seeking practices 52.5% mothers took the child to the doctor after 2 days, 30% mothers did self-medication.
Conclusion:
There is inadequate maternal knowledge; attitude and practices regarding diarrhea and its prevention in the population studied. There is need of health education to mothers about diarrhea, its causes prevention and proper treatment.
Downloads
References
World Health Organization and UNICEF 2009. Diarrhea: why children are still dying and what can be done. [Online] Available at http://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/documents/9789241598415 /en/index.html. Assess on 12th March 2013.
World Health Organization 2009. Diarrheal disease fact sheet. [Online] Available at http://www.who.int/ ediacentre/factsheets/fs330/en/index.html. Assess on12th March 2013.
World health organization 2012. Word health statistics 2012. [Online] Available at http://www.who.int/gho
/publications/ world_health_statistics/2012/en/.Assess on 12th March 2013.
Black RE, Morris SS, Bryce J: Where and why are 10 million children dying every year? Lancet 2003,361:2226-34.
Jones G, Steketee RW, Black RE, Bhutta ZA, Morriss SS: Child survival study group. How many child deaths can we prevent this year? Lancet 2003, 362:65-71.
Bryce J, Boschi-pinto C, Shibuya K, Black RE: The child health epidemiology reference group. WHO estimates the cause of death in children. Lancet 2005, 365:1147-52.
Fischer Walker CL, Friberg IK, Binkin N, Young M, Walker N: Scaling up diarrhea prevention and treatment interventions: a lives saved tool analysis. PLoS Med 2011; 8:1-8.
United Nations Children’s Fund / World Health Organization: diarrhea: Why Children are Still Dying and What can be Done. New York: UNICEF/WHO 2009.
World Health Organization emergency cell Pakistan 2005. Mothers Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices related to Scabies, ARI and Diarrhea in the earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan; a Household Survey. [Online] Available at www.docstoc.com/Mothers-Knowledge-
Attitudes-and-Practices-rel.html. Assess on 12th March 2013.
Rehan SH, Gautam K, Gurung K. KAP of mothers regarding diarrhea. Indian J prev Soc Med 2003; 34:1-6.
Hackett KM, Mukta S, Chowdhury SB, Daniel W. Knowledge, attitudes and perceptions on infant and young child nutrition and feeding among adolescent girls and young mothers in rural Bangladesh. Maternal and Child Mutrition 2012; 3:80-5.
Usfar AA, Iswarawanti DN, Davelyna D, Dillon D. Food and personal hygiene perceptions and practices among caregivers whose children have diarrhea: a qualitative study of urban mothers in Tangerang, Indonesia. Nutr Educ Behav 2012; 42:33-40.
Agha A, white F, Younus M, Kadir MM, Alir S, Fatimi Z. Eight key household practices of integrated management of childhood illnesses (IMCI) amongst mothers of children aged 6 to 59 months in Gambat, Sindh, Pakistan. J Pak Med Assoc 2007; 57:288-93.
Wilson SE, Ouédraogo CT, Lea P, Ouédraogo A, Hess Sonja Y, Rouamba Noël, et all. Caregiver Recognition of Childhood Diarrhea, Care Seeking Behaviors and Home Treatment Practices in Rural Burkina Faso: Plos One 2011; 3:300-5.
Rabbi SE, Dey NC. Exploring the gap between hand washing knowledge and practices in Bangladesh: a cross-sectional comparative study. BMC public health 2013; 13:89-95.
Ansari M, Ibrahim MI, Shankar. Mothers' Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Regarding Diarrhea and its Management in Morang Nepal: An Interventional Study. Tropical J Pharm 2013; 24:205-14.
Sillah F. Knowledge, Attitude and Practice Assessment of Mothers in Managing Children under Five Years Old with Diarrhea in the Gambia. Taipei Med Uni J 2012; 5:7-19.
Bevoor, Darshan. A study to evaluate the effectiveness of planned teaching programme on knowledge on prevention and control of malnutrition among mothers of under five children residing in vantmuri primary health centre of Belgaum city, Karnataka. KLE Uni J
; 7:10-15.
World Health Organization: Oral Rehydration Salts: Production of the New ORS. Geneva: WHO; 2006. [online] Available at http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/ 2006/WHO_FCH_CAH_06.1.pdf. Assess on 12th March 2013.
Avita A, Usfar D, Dwi N, Devy D, Drupadi D. Food and personal hygiene perceptions and practices among caregivers whose children have diarrhea: A qualitative study of urban mothers in tangerang, Indonesia J Nut Edu Behav 2010; 42:33-40.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Yasmin Mumtaz, Mubbashir Zafar, Zara Mumtaz
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Articles published in the Journal of Dow University of Health Sciences are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc/4.0/. This license permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium; provided the original work is properly cited and initial publication in this journal. 
