Assessment of Maternal Knowledge and Attitude towards the use of Ora Rehydration Therapy (ORT) in Childhood Diarrhoea Disease
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Date
2020-06
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Publisher
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences
Abstract
Diarrhoea remain one of the leading causes of death among children below the age of five. Most infant deaths due to diarrhoea can be prevented by simple administration of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) and mothers play an essential role in implementing this therapy. This study assesses the knowledge, attitude and practices of mothers of under-5 children attending the Children Specialist Hospital towards oral rehydrating therapy. Based on informed consent, a validated semi-structured questionaire was used to collect data on ORT knowledge, attitude and practice from a total of 203 mothers attending the Children Specialist Hospital, Ilorin, Kwara State. Sample size was determined using the Fischer’s formula. Data obtained were checked for completeness and then analyzed using descriptive and chi-square analysis. A total of 206 mothers were enrolled into the study, with response rate of 99 %. Based on the scoring system, more than 70 % of mothers displayed good knowledge of the therapy while 49.3 % (100/203) and 28.6 % (58/203) exhibited fair and poor attitude towards the therapy respectively. Overall ORT practice among mothers in this study was very poor, with only 32.5 % (66/203) showed good practice skill of the therapy. Mothers level of knowledge positively influence their ORT practice (P=0.015). The findings from this study indicate that the attitude and practices of mothers towards ORT utilization during episodes of under-5 diarrhoea disease is inadequate. More efforts towards improving maternal knowledge, attitude and practices on the use of ORT in the management of under-5 diarrhoea is recommended.
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Keywords
Knowledge, practices, mother, childhood diarrhoea, ORT