Mothers' Knowledge about Dehydration due to Diarrhea in Children under 5 Years
Keywords:
Assessment, Mothers' Knowledge, Dehydration, DiarrheAbstract
Objective: The study aims to assess mothers' knowledge about their children less than 5 years with dehydration
due to diarrhea and to find the relationships between the mothers' knowledge and their demographic
characteristics.
Methodology: A descriptive study was carried out in 2 pediatric teaching hospitals (Child's Center Pediatric
Teaching Hospital and Children Welfare Pediatric Teaching hospital in the city of Baghdad from the lst
November 2007 to the lst May 2008. A purposive "non probability" sample of (50) mothers. Tliese mothers are
admitted to hospitals with their children. The data were collected through using constructed questiormaire which
comprises (52) items and filled by using interview technique. The reliability of the questiormaire was determined
throughapilotstudyandthevaliditythroughapanelofexperts.Thedatawereanalyzedthroughtheapplication
of descriptive statistic frequency, percentage, and the application of inferential statistical procedures, which
include Pearson correlation coefficient and chi-square.
Results: The results of the study indicated that (30%) of mothers age between the ages of (31-35) years and the
highest proportion of sample (24%) their level of education is (primary school), and half of the sample (50%)
were government employee, and (40%) of the sample bad inadequate income. The results indicated that (56%)
and (52%) of the mothers has fair knowledge about general information of dehydration, and the responsibility of
the mother towards child with dehydration respectively. In general, the results indicated that more than half of
the sample had fair knowledge (52%) to all aspects of dehydration. The finding have approved that there is a
significant relationship between mothers' knowledge and demographic characteristics such as age, educational
level, occupation of the mother and family income.
Recommendations:
The study recommended that mothers' knowledge should be improved about the dangers of diarrhea and
dehydration.
