Risk Factors for Diarrhea in Children under Five Years of Age Attending El Amal Maternal and Child Health in Quasar City: A Cross-sectional study

Document Type : Original research articles

Authors

1 Department of Public Health and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut, Egypt

2 Department of Pediatrics,Faculty of Medicine,South Valley University, Qena, Egypt

Abstract

Background: To date, there is a lack in the published literature that reported the risk
factors for diarrhea for under-five children in Egypt.
Objectives: we conducted the present cross-sectional study to investigate the role of a
number of possible risk factors for diarrhea among under-five children in Egypt.
Patients and methods: The present study was a cross-sectional study that carried out
from February 2017 to August 2017 at the pediatric outpatient clinics of El Amal
Maternal and Child Health in Quasar city.
Results and conclusion: A statistically significant higher proportion of patients who did
not exclusively breastfeed were more likely to have more than four episodes of diarrhea
per day(p =0.026). Similarly, diarrheal episodes more than four motions per day was
significantly more prevalent among children who consumed unstored cooked food (p < br />=0.1) or did not receive measles vaccine (p =0.04). Notably, children of mother who
knew the benefits of breastfeeding were less likely to suffer from diarrheal episodes (p < br /><0.001). However, diarrheal episodes per day did not have significant associations with
age (p =0.656), sibling number (p =0.645), number of rooms within the house (p= 0.145),
and number of people number living in the house (p =0.721).

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