DETERMINANTS OF DIARRHOEAL DISEASES: A COMMUNITY BASED STUDY IN URBAN SOUTH WESTERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

ABSTRACT
Objectives: To identify the determinants and describe the extent of diarrhoeal diseases
among under-five children in urban Ethiopia.
Design: Community based, cross-sectional study.
Setting: Jimma, a town in south western Ethiopia, is an urban area with multi-ethnic
population. The town is divided into 20 kebelles. Each kebelle has a population of about
5000 people
Subjects: Six hundred and five children under the age of five years were selected by
random sampling. There were 142 children with diarrhoeal diseases in selected
households. All those without diarrhoea were taken as controls.
Results: The incidence at diarrhoeal diseases was 5.48 episodes per child per year. The
incidence of persistent diarrhoea was 7.75%. About 24.5% of the acute diarrhoeal
diseases (ADD) culminated to persistent diarrhoea. Well source of water, lack of complete
immunization, attack of measles and acute respiratory infecions (ARI) in the previous
two weeks were found to be significantly associated with occurrence of diarrhoeal
disease; however, only ARI and well water were retained in the logistic regression
analysis.
Conclusion: The incidence of diarrhoeal diseases and the progression to persistent
diarrhoea are very high. Many of the socio-environmental factors did not appear as
significant determinants independently. The implication of this is that in a homogenous
and economically deprived society improvement in a single factor does not reduce the
problem of diarrhoeal diseases. Hence, an inter-sectoral approach is recommended to
control diarrhoeal diseases.