Barriers towards the Practices of Oral Rehydration Therapy in the Management of Diarrhoea among the Mothers of Under Five Children pediatric outpatient department of Guwahati Medical College and Hospital, Assam

Abstract

Diarrheal diseases rank among the “to three” causes of pediatric death of the developing world. Dehydration is the most common cause of death in it. The objectives of the study were -to identify the practices, barriers to practice of oral rehydration therapy and its mutual association and association with some selected demographic variables like age, education, occupation, religion, type of community and family income .A descriptive survey approach and design was used for the study.Convenience non probability sampling technique was used to collect data from 113 mothers of the underfive children attending the paediatric outpatient department of Guwahati Medical College and Hospital, Assam. Data’s were collected by a structured interview schedule.: The assessment was done by descriptive statistics. It revealed barrier scores like knowledge barrier (M=2.4, SD=.68),practice barrier(M=4.06,SD=1.91), socio-cultural barrier (M=2.4,SD=.68), Access barrier (M=0.31,SD=0.91), and financial barrier (M=1.72, SD=2.46),. The study findings shows strong association of practice level with age (chi square= 61.54; df=6, p<0.01), education (chi square= 77.53; df=6, p<0.01) and family income (chi square= 84.05; df=6, p<0.01). There is strong association of knowledge barrier (chi square= 9.5; df=3, p<0.01), practice barrier (chi square= 13.01; df=6, p<0.01) and socio-cultural barrier (chi square= 57.53; df=3, p<0.01) with the level of practice of ORT by the mothers. 55% of mothers strongly agreed that while practicing ORT their child vomits or had feeling of nausea and the dislikes of taste of ORS are some barriers towards practice of ORT. 31% of mothers believed other traditional method more effective than ORT which is also a moderate barrier to practice ORT. 32 % of mothers said that the cost of ORS is high for them to afford for which they go for traditional method. Therefore strategies should be made to reduce the emetic factor and also to add a good taste in ORS, to reduce cost for increasing its practice.