Abstract
Objective. A cross sectional hospital based survey was undertaken in rural area of Wardha District of Maharashtra to assess the knowledge, attitutde and practices pf mothers regarding diarrhea and oral rehydration therapy.Methods : 75 mothers of under-five children have been selected in the study. They were interviewed by an interviewer using a predesigned and pretested questionnaire. 69.3% of them had a per capita income of less than rupees 500 where as 68% knew the correct definition of diarrhea. Only 5.3% had aware that diarrhea leads to dehydration and 90.7% knew ORT and ORS was easily available to the majority, but the rest practiced ORT.Results : Nearly 1/3rd of mothers were mixing ORS in the wrong fluid. Nearly half of the mothers were not practicing adequate hand washing, 32% were using feeding bottles and 2/3rd of them were not boiling the feeding bottles.Conclusion : The maternal knowledge towards diarrhea and ORS was inadequate in the population studied and there was a big gap between actual and desired practices.
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Datta, V., John, R., Singh, V.P. et al. Maternal knowledge, attitude and practices towards diarrhea and oral rehydration therapy in rural Maharashtra. Indian J Pediatr 68, 1035–1037 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02722350
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02722350