Frequency of Diarrhea and Its Risk Factors among Children under Five Years in Three Teaching Hospitals of Peshawar, Pakistan

Abstract

Diarrheal disease among children under 5 years' age is a major cause of morbidity and mortality of infants and younger children worldwide particularly in less developed countries.

Objective: we conducted a study in order to identify frequency of diarrhea & its most common risk factors among children aged less than five years in Peshawar.

Methods: It was a descriptive study conducted on 450 children coming with different complains in outpatient Pediatrics Department of Khyber Teaching Hospital, Lady Reading Hospital, Hayat Abad Medical Complex, in Peshawar.

Results: The frequency of diarrhea was 59 %( 264) among 450 children .While other diseases was 41%. 88% children under the 24^th months of age & 12% were more than 24 months. Most of the mothers were illiterate 76.5%, primary and middle were 14.4% metric and intermediate were 8.3% and graduate were only 0.8%. There were only17% (44) mother washed  her hands before feed the frequency of no washing hand before feed 19.3% ( 51 )and The mothers were found to wash their hand every time after attending toilet 85.2% (225) while 14.4% (38) wash their hand occasionally and only 0.4% (1) did not wash their hand. 86.4% families had income less than 5000 to 20000 per month. Children's with the complete immunization were 46% (121) among 264 cases, partial immunization 35% (92), had no immunization 19 % (51). In the comparison of frequency of diarrhea with gender, result showed that there is no significant association between gender and frequency of diarrhea (p-value >0.05).

Conclusion: The result of the study show that the main factors which lead to diarrhea namely, Low socio economic status 86.4% No or occasional hand wash before feed  83.3%, mother illiteracy 76.5%, joint family 58.0%, no or partial immunization 54.1%.