| dc.description.abstract | The main objective of this
study was to establish the relationship between risk factors of
childhood diarrhea and it’s occurrence in Korogocho slum in Nairobi County. The hypotheses
to be tested were; there is no significant relationship between environmental and socio- economic
risk factors and the occurrence of diarrhoea among children below five years in Korogocho slum.
The study variables included sources and treatment of drinking water, accessibility, type and
cleanliness
of toilet facilities, levels of education, income and hand washing habits by
mothers.
Data on diarrhoea
outcome and its determinants
was based on two week recall and self reporting
survey. The households for
respondents
(mothers of children under five years of age) were
selected
using
systematic random sampling. Every third house
hold
with a child below five years
of age
was selected, when there was no child in the third house hold, the researcher went to the
next household
with a mother of a child below five years
until a sample size of 90
respondents
was achieved.
Data
was collected using
well designed
open ended
questionnaires and
analyzed using
descriptive and chi square statistics.
The results showed that community and household
environmental factors had
a positive impact on
diarrhoea
of
children
under five
years of age
in
Korogocho slum. However,
access to and sharing of toilet facilities was
not found to be
statistically significant in
occurrence of
diarrhoea
in children below five years
of age
. Treatment
of drinking water was found to be an effective measure of reducing
diarrhoea
incidence in
children below five years of age since it was found to be significantly associated with it
. Socioeconomic factors were also significantly associated with
diarrhoea occurrence of children under
five years old. For example, childhood diarrhoea
did not decrease significantly with higher
education of the
mothers though hygiene habit of the mother was
influenced by the level of education. The study
established that washing of hands by mothers was
statistically significant
in
reducing
occurrence of
childhood diarrhoea. Based on
two weeks recall, 36.4% of
mothers
reported that their children
under five years old
had suffered
from diarrhoea. This
prevalence
was higher than earlier estimated (31%) by
African Population and Health Research Centre in
2006.
Based on the results, the study identified
several recommendations and
suggested areas
for
further research.
The key recommendations are the
need to
institutionalize deliberate
interventions to provide slum dwellers with clean and quality drinking water and proper
sanitation facilities to ensure safe and effective disposal of faecal waste. | en_US |
