Management of acute diarrhoea among children aged 6-59 months admitted at Juba Teaching Hospital
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Date
2018Author
Stephen, A. J
Murila, F. V
Wamalwa, D
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
INTRODUCTION: Diarrhoea is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity in children under five worldwide and accounts for
42.9% of under-5 mortality in South Sudan. Clinical outcomes for diarrhoea correlate with the quality of hospital care.
METHODOLOGY: The standard WHO/IMCI for assessment of health workers’ performance in the management of illnesses
in children under 5years was adapted and used in the study. Questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data on
health workers’ knowledge and practice in the management of acute diarrhoea. Descriptive analysis was used to determine
the means, frequencies and proportions of the variables.
RESULTS: Thirty nine health workers were interviewed and 202 medical records of children admitted with acute diarrhoea
between March and June 2014 were examined. The majority (75.74%) of the children were 6-24 months old. Most
assessments were incomplete; the commonest sign assessed was sunken eyes (75.12%) and the least assessed was ability to
drink/breastfeed (34.32%). Seventy five percent of patients were classified correctly according to WHO guidelines and 61%
of health workers administered fluid therapy correctly. Health workers’ knowledge of how to assess the hydration state was
poor (below 50%).
CONCLUSION: There was inadequate assessment and documentation of the signs and symptoms of dehydration and
inappropriate use of rehydration fluid therapy in the children admitted with acute watery diarrhoea. Regular in-house
training and feedback and provision of supplies should be given to the clinicians in order to improve the quality of care.
URI
https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/20173212889?q=((%22university+of+nairobi+2018%22+OR+(university+of+nairobi+2018)))http://hdl.handle.net/11295/103428
Publisher
University of Nairobi
Rights
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
- Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) [10377]
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