Mother’s Knowledge about Childhood Diarrhoea and Its Management in Balangoda MOH Area: Cross Sectional Community Based Study

Abstract

Background: Diarrhoea which is more common among young children is one of the major health concerns in Sri Lanka. This disease can be managed easily in primary home care level without hospitalization or advice of professionals. Mother is the primary care giver of youngers. Hence it is important to assess the mothers’ knowledge and ability to manage it at home care level. Objectives: To assess mothers’ knowledge about childhood diarrhea and its management. Methodology: A community based descriptive cross sectional study was conducted among 400 mothers who have children in 1-5 age group in Balangoda MOH area. Simple random sampling technique was used to select participant. Self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. Mothers who were not willing to participate in the research study were excluded from the study. Data were analysed using SPSS (21 version) software. Ethical clearance was obtained from the ethical review committee of Faculty of Medicine, University of Ruhuna. Result and conclusions: Mean age of the study sample was 30.98±4.954 years and 50% mothers had educated upto O/L. Majority of mothers’ (93.3%) had adequate knowledge of homecare management on the childhood diarrhea. Most of them have got this knowledge from public health midwives (87.5%). Among the different knowledge aspects, the knowledge of cause of childhood diarrhea (p=0.006) was significantly associated with the higher maternal age but the overall knowledge and home care management were not associated with the maternal age (p=0.076). But overall knowledge and homecare management (p=0.000), knowledge of causes of childhood diarrhea (p=0.005) knowledge of severe symptoms of dehydration (p=0.003) and knowledge of ORS (p=0.002) significantly associated with higher maternal educational level. This study reveals that considerable number of mothers had adequate overall knowledge about child hood diarrhea and it's management. But it is very important to plan educational interventions to improve their knowledge furthermore based upon their educational level.