Knowledge regarding diarrhoea and its management among mothers of under-five children in an urban area of Amritsar, Punjab

Abstract

Background: Diarrhoeal diseases are a leading cause of childhood morbidity and mortality in developing countries, and an important cause of malnutrition. In 2003 an estimated 1.87 million children below 5 years died from diarrhoea. In India nearly 1.5 million under-fives are dying every year only due to acute gastroenteritis. Therefore the present study was conducted to find the knowledge about diarrhoea and its management among the mothers of under-five children.Methods: A total of 400 mothers of under-five children were interviewed. The mothers were selected by adopting simple random sampling method. A pre-designed and pre tested questionnaire was used to collect the information. House to house survey was done to collect the information. Statistical analysis was done by using SPSS 20.0.Results: Majority of the mothers (72.8%) were in age group of 21-30 years. Out of total 53% knew that diarrhoea is passage of three or more loose stool in a day. Education status of mother has significant relation with the knowledge about diarrhoea and its spread (p=.000). 69.5% of the mothers knew that ORS should be given in dehydration. Only 66.3% could tell the correct method of preparing ORS solution. Source of knowledge about ORS for the mothers was mass media (45%), health workers (40.7%), books (29.7%), neighbours (28.2%) and family member (22.2%).Conclusions: The study concludes that there is lack of knowledge among mothers regarding diarrhoea and its management. There is a need of health education for mothers about diarrhoea and its management. IEC activities should be increased to educate the community about the principles of environmental hygiene.