Contributing Factors to Acute Diarrhea in Children Less than Five Years in Orotta Pediatric National Referral Hospital from 1st May to 30th June 2016

Introduction: Acute gastroenteritis (AGE) is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in children world-wide with the highest incidence in the economically transitioning countries like Eritrea. It kills more children than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined. Therefore, identifying the real and actual contributing factors of acute diarrhea in these population is of a great need. Objective: To determine the contributing factors associated with acute gastroenteritis among children less than five years in Orotta Pediatric National Referral Hospitalfrom 1st May to 30th June 2016. Methodology: A hospital‐based qualitative retrospective case–control study was done with N= 160, 80 cases and 80 controls of children who were admitted in the outpatient department of OPNRH. The data was gathered from the children health records and by interviewing the care givers of the children using objectively structured questionnaire. Collected data was entered in SPSS version 20 and analysis was performed with appropriate statistical tools like Chi‐square test and odds ratio to determine the significant associations. Results: A total of N= 160 children, 80 cases and 80 controls were enrolled in the study. Significant associations were found with child age, maternal age, washing breast before feeding the child, public latrine utilization, hand washing practice of mothers, storage of cooked food, and buying food from street vendors. Conclusion and recommendation: From this study we identified the contributing factors of acute diarrhea to be private or public latrine ownership, hand washing practices of mothers, storage of cooked foodand buying food from street vendors.Therefore,this study recommends that more emphasis should be given on sanitation practices (hand washing, food storage, and usage of latrines) and safety of purchased food from street vendors should be reassured.