Abstract
Background objective: Acute diarrheal diseases leading to dehydration,are among the leading causes of mortality in infants and young children in many developingcountries. The objective of our study was to to assess knowledge, attitude and practice ofmothers about use of oral rehydration salt for management of dehydration due to diarrhea inchildren less than five years of age. Study Design: Hospital based cross-sectional descriptivestudy. Setting: Oral rehydration center of Government Infectious Disease Children HospitalPeshawar. Period: February 16th, 2009 to March, 17th 2009. Patients and Methods: We enrolled115 mothers of infants and children less than five years old by systematic random sampling.We included willing mothers for this study, children less than five years old showing some orno signs of dehydration due to three or more than three episodes of diarrhea within 24 hours.Exclusion criteria included unwilling mothers, severe dehydration due to diarrhea, complaintsof severe vomiting and those having dysentery. Results: We evaluated 115 mothers, withmajority 88 (76%) were 15-25 years age group and 27 (24%) were 26-36 years who visited oralrehydration center respectively. Majority of mothers were uneducated 97 (84%), Housewives103 (90%), 59 (51%) had 4-6 children, 72 (63%) were living in Kacha house and about 84 (73%)had monthly family income less than 5000 rupees. It was found that 72 (63%) mothers knewbenefits of oral rehydration salt in diarrheal dehydration. About 67 (58%) mothers were able totell correct method of ORS preparation. 47 (41%) mothers knew that ORS should be discardedafter one day usage, while 42 (37%) did not know. Doctors, 83 (72%) were found to be the mostcommon source of information regarding ORS usage, followed by mothers-in-law, 21 (18%)and lady health workders (LHWs), 10 (10%) Conclusion: We concludedm young mothers anduneducated motheres of children below five years were of opinion that only medicine is the bestmanagement for diarrheal dehydration.
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