Assessment of Knowledge and Practice of Mothers of Children under Five regarding Zinc Therapy in Childhood Diarrhea

Abstract

ABSTRACT Aim Zinc is now considered as an important treatment intervention along with low-osmolarity oral rehydration salts in diarrhea. But awareness about the use of zinc remains low. The present study was conducted with an objective of assessing knowledge and practice of mothers of under-5 children about zinc supplementation in diarrhea. Materials and methods A hospital-based cross-sectional study was carried out in the Paediatric Outpatient Department Agartala Government Medical College and GB Pant Hospital, Agartala, Tripura, India, with a sample size of 700 mothers of under-5 children over 2 months. Convenience sampling technique was employed and the data were collected in a structured, interview schedule. Descriptive statistics and tests like chi-square test were used for analysis. Results Only 1.9% of all the respondents (13 out of 700) had heard about zinc therapy in diarrhea. Out of them, 11 mothers had actually used zinc in practice and 7 could tell the duration of therapy. None of them were aware of what benefit is conferred by zinc in an episode of diarrhea. An association between knowledge levels and educational status and occupation of mothers was found to be statistically significant. Conclusion The study reaffirmed the abysmally low level of awareness about zinc supplementation among mothers. Therefore, health education can be used as a tool to promote knowledge and practice of zinc supplementation in diarrhea to reduce mortality and morbidity. How to cite this article Dhar DK, Majumder N, Paul D. Assessment of Knowledge and Practice of Mothers of Children under Five regarding Zinc Therapy in Childhood Diarrhea. Int J Adv Integ Med Sci 2016;1(4):169-172.