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

• Main Authors: Ahmed M. M. Hany, Abdelnser S. H. Mohamad, Heba M. Qubaisy, Amira A. Mahmoud
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: South Valley University, Faculty of Medicine 2018-07-01
• Series: SVU - International Journal of Medical Sciences
• Subjects: diarrhea; risk factors; vaccination; cross-sectional
• Online Access: https://svuijm.journals.ekb.eg/article_120563.html

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).