Abstract:
Introduction: Diarrhea is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality, especially among
children under five years of age in developing countries. The diarrheal disease prevelance was
high in children who are living rural area. This may have different factors like socio economic
factors, environmental factors and behavioral factors. Also, the exist variations in explanatory
variables of diarrhea depending on the context of the study.
Objective: To assess the prevalence and associated factors of diarrhea morbidity among underfive
children in rural kebeles of Dire Dawa administration.
Methods: A community based cross sectional study was conducted at rural Dire Dawa from
May16 to 31, 2016. Six of the 38 rural kebeles in the Dire Dawa were selected randomly, finally
295 households were chosen by systematic random sampling using existing list of all households
of under five children as a sampling frame. Data was collected using core questionnaire which
was designed by WHO. Epi Data was used for data entry and analysis was carried out using
SPSS version 20th program. Bivariate and Multi variable logistic analysis used to identify the
significant determinants of diarrhea.
Results
The prevalence of diarrhea among children under 5years of age was 37.1 %( 95% CI: 31.6%-
43.3%). The illiterate mothers (AOR=3.69, 95% CI:1.01-13.43), Improper refuse disposal
practices (AOR =3.03, 95% CI: 1.38-6.63), lack of hand washing with soap (AOR=4.82,95% CI:
1.85-12.53), mother history of diarrhea in pasts two weeks (AOR=6.44, 95% CI: 2.39-17.35),
the presence of two or more children in a household (AOR=4.58, 95% CI: 1.86-11.25), and age
of the child 12-23 (AOR=5.27, 95% CI 1.66-16.73), child not supplemented with Vitamin A
(AOR=3.26, 95% CI 1.24-8.57) were the predictor of diarrhea.
Conclusion
This study demonstrated that diarrhea morbidity was relatively high among children under- 5
years of age residing in rural kebeles of Dire Dawa Administration. Efforts to reduce childhood
diarrhea should focus on improving household sanitation, hand washing at critical point, safe
water supply, personal hygiene, strength vitamin A supplementation and child birth spacing.
