Determinants of mothers' treatment of diarrhea in rural Ethiopia

A total of 6414 mothers in a rural Ethiopian district were sampled and interviewed about the presence of under-5 yr children and the prevalence of diarrhea in the previous 2 weeks. There were 707 cases of diarrhea among the 6384 under-5 yr children, yielding a period prevalence of 11.07%. The diarrhea associated mortality rate was 11.4/1000 children. A structured questionnaire on home and professional treatment as well as knowledge about diarrhea was completed by the mothers of 619 of these cases. Over 50% of the mothers restricted the child's fluid intake and 70% stopped or decreased food intake; only 20% used ORS or cereal based ORT. The major factor associated with adequate home treatment was the mother's knowledge about the causes and treatment of diarrhea. Only 26.8% of the mothers had sufficient knowledge. Many of the mothers believed that teething and accidental falls caused diarrhea and that diarrhea helped to clean out the bowels. They also believed that only water should be given to the child, but that too much fluid worsened diarrhea. Half of the mothers did not seek professional treatment; 20% went to a traditional healer and only 7.3% took the child to a health institution. The outcome of the diarrhea was positively associated with having sought modern treatment and negatively associated with having gone to a traditional healer.