PREVALANCE OF DIARRHOEAL DISEASE AND ITS ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG UNDER FIVE CHILDREN IN AGENA TOWN, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Background: Diarrhoea is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality throughout the world. Global prevalence of diarrhoeal disease has shown that one billion episode and 3 million deaths occur each year among under 5 children. Thus, the main objective of this study is to assess the prevalence of diarrhoeal disease and its associated factors among under 5years old children in Agena town, Gurage zone, SNNP, Ethiopia. Methods: Across-sectional community based survey was conducted from October 2, 2021 to October 15, 2021 on 292 under five children. Data was collected by face to face interviews using pretested structured questionnaire. The data collected was cleaned, coded and entered to SPSS version 20.0 for analysis. A systematic random sampling technique was used by determining "K" value after identifying total number of under five children. Result: data was collected from 562 households and the two weeks prevalence of diarrhoea in Under five years old children was 30.1%. High rate was seen in less than one years of age but, no sex variation. Children of mothers’ age 20-30 years old had highest diarrhoeal occurrence. Occurrence of diarrhoea was highest in those who started breast feeding their children after 24 hours of delivery (7.7%). Bivariate and multivariate analysis shows that the occurrence of diarrhoea was strongly associated with age of the child [AOR ( 95% CI) = 10.296 (0.786,50.450)], educational status of mother [AOR ( 95% CI) = 2.212( 0.556, 8.790)], occupation of the mother [AOR ( 95% CI) =0.825(0.298, 2.286)], monthly income of family [AOR ( 95% CI) =1.725(0.959, 3.105)], current status of latrine mother [AOR ( 95% CI) = 0.356(0.173, 0.730)] absence of hand washing facility after using toilet [AOR ( 95% CI) = 2.621(1.470, 4.672)], but no significant association between occurrence of diarrhoea with age, ethnicity, religion of the mother, initiation and duration of breast feeding. Discussion In this study different socio economic and demographic characteristics of data showed that the majority 87(98.9%) of the cases were seen among children of less than 2 years of age group. similarly children’s of mothers who were housewife had the high rate of 2 week prevalence of II diarrhoea 48(54.5%) than others, which is similar to study conducted in ArbaMinch(south of Ethiopia). 20(22.7%) cases from the total were children of illiterate mother and 35(39.8%) cases were from mothers who can only read and write; this implies low level of education increases risk of diarrhoea Conclusion and recommendation: It is concluded that as to this study the prevalence of diarrhoea is high & the possible under line risk factor is improper sanitation. For the future, further research on identifying such problems and giving health education on risk factors of diarrhoea by responsible body is recommended