Morbidity and associated factors of diarrheal diseases among under five children in Arba-Minch district, Southern Ethiopia, 2012

Introduction: Acute diarrheal disease among children younger than 5 years old remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide. In Arba-Minch District diarrheal diseases are the second causes for clinical presentations. The aim of this study was to determine the morbidity and associated factors of diarrheal diseases among under five children in Arba-Minch District. Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted in February 2012. A multistage sampling technique was used to select 590 households that had at least one under-five child. Data were collected using World Health Organization core questionnaire by trained data collectors. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, proportion and chisquare test) were used to describe the study population in relation to relevant variables. To identify independent predictors of childhood diarhea, only variables that were statistically significant during chi-square test were entered into multiple logistic regression models to control the effects of confounders. Result: the prevalence of diarrhea among under-five index children was 30.5%, which was significantly associated with child’s being from mothers of not attended formal education (AOR = 1.89, 95% CI =1.35, 2.53), being at the age of 6-23 months ((AOR = 2.78, 95% CI= 1.72, 4.55) and being from mothers of poor hand washing practice (AOR= 2.33, 95%CI =1.80, 4.15). Conclusion: The findings showed that the level of diarrheal morbidity is high in the study area. As significant number of the mothers do not have adequate knowledge on the occurrence and risk factor of diarrheal disease. Enhancing community based behavior change communications using multiple channels (radio) and community health workers is recommended to reduce the occurrence of childhood diarhea and associated consequences among children in the study area.