A case Control Study on factors of Diarrheal Morbidity among Under-Five Children in Wolaita Soddo Town, Southern Ethiopia
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Date
2010-06
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Addis Abeba Universty
Abstract
Background: Diarrheal disease is the most common cause of illness and the second leading
cause of child death in the world. The disease accounts for 4.3% of the total global disease
burden; the burden being greatest in the developing world including Ethiopia. Even though there
were studies that were done on childhood diarrhea in our country, they did not use analytical
study designs to explore associated factors of diarrheal morbidity.
Objective: This study was intended to assess potential factors associated with diarrheal
morbidity among under-five children in Wolaita Soddo town, Southern Ethiopia.
Methods: A community based case control study on sample population of 198 cases and 396
controls was conducted in Wolaita Soddo town, Southern Ethiopia, in 2010. Three kebeles based
on purposive sampling technique were selected to enumerate total cases (under-five children
with diarrhea) and their controls (under-five children with no diarrhea). For each case, two
controls were selected from neighboring households. From the total cases and controls
enumerated, 198 cases and 396 controls were selected randomly. Multiple logistic regression
analysis was employed to evaluate independent effect of covariates on the diarrheal morbidity.
Results: The odds of experiencing diarrheal morbidity was significantly higher among children:
having fathers who were able to read and write (AOR=2.56; 95%CI=1.25, 5.25), having families
who perceived they were economically very poor (AOR=3.84; 95%CI=1.25, 11.82), having
families without toilet facilities (AOR=13.45; 95%CI=3.58, 50.49), having families whose
compound were observed to have faeces, having families who used well/spring/river as source of
water, having mother/caretaker who did not wash at all critical hand washing times, having
mother/caretaker who did not know the three transmission modes of diarrheal morbidity.
Conclusion: The potential factors of diarrheal morbidity were concluded to be unavailability of
toilet facility, poor human waste management, and unsafe source of water, and poor personal
hygiene, and lack of knowledge about transmission of diarrheal morbidity. Letting the
community have common toilet facilities and common safe source of drinking water, giving
health education to households on human waste management, utilization of water, personal
hygiene and transmission modes of diarrhea are recommended to alleviate the problem of underfive
children diarrheal morbidity.
Keywords: Case control study, Diarrhea, Factors, Under-five children
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Keywords
Case control study, Diarrhea, Factors, Under-five children