A Case Control Study on the Determinants of Behavior towards Diarrhea in Children under Five Years Old

Aims: The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between knowledge of diarrhea, hand washing behavior, toilet use behavior and the incidence of diarrhea in children under five years old.

Study Design: A case control study.

Place and Duration of Study: The study was conducted in October 2022 at area of the Johan Pahlawan Community Health Center, Aceh Barat District, Aceh Province-Indonesia.

Methodology: The sample size was 92, with 46 cases and 46 controls. The subjects of the case and control groups are mothers with children under five years old. SPSS version 20 was utilized to conduct statistical analysis on both univariate and bivariate data, with the chi-square test being employed to address the hypothesis.

Results: The results showed that both the case and control groups had more children aged ≤2 years. Mothers in the case group were found to have a higher proportion with poor knowledge level (66.2%), poor hand washing behavior (54.3%), and poor toilet use behavior (67.4%) compared to the mothers in the control group. Statistical tests proved that there was a significant relationship between maternal knowledge (p=0.022), hand washing behavior (p=0.020), and toilet use behavior (p=0.001) with the incidence of diarrhea in children under five years old.

Conclusion: Efforts are needed to improve the knowledge and skills of mothers in preventing and managing diarrhea through education by health professionals.