Maternal and child level factors associated with childhood (0-23 months) diarrhoea in Ghana: a pooled analysis of national representative datasets

Abstract

In Ghana, diarrhoea is one of the leading causes of childhood morbidity and mortality. The objective of this study was to examine maternal and child level factors associated with diarrhoea among children in Ghana. A weighted group of 4,821 mother-child dyads was used for the analysis. The analysis was restricted to mothers with children under 2 years of age. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed on the pooled data. The pooled prevalence of diarrhoea among the children was 18 per cent. It was found that children older than five months, rural children, children whose mothers had 24 months or more preceding birth interval, and those houses' floors made of unimproved materials were more likely to have had experienced diarrhoea. While children with mothers who obtained secondary or higher education and those had access to unimproved sources of drinking water reported less occurrence of diarrhoea. Maternal and child factors have some effects on the occurrence of diarrhoea among children less than two years in Ghana. To decrease the prevalence of childhood diarrhoea in the country, more educative programmes are required for mothers whose children are more likely to having frequent episodes of diarrhoea.

Pooled prevalence and associated factors of diarrhea among under-five years children in East Africa: A multilevel logistic regression analysis

“…The odds of developing diarrheal diseases is higher in children who were aged 7–12 and 13–24 months compared to children aged 0–6 months. This finding is in agreement with other studies [ 7 , 14 – 16 , 33 ]. This high odds of childhood diarrhea prevalence might attribute to the start of supplementary feeding after the age of six months.…”

“…Additionally, being children born from mothers belonging to low community-level educational status and being male are at high probability of experiencing diarrhea as compared to counterparts. A similar declaration was also made by other studies [ 8 , 16 , 18 , 38 , 39 ]. Lastly, children of not working mothers have a 12% lower odds to have diarrhea than those of mothers who work.…”

“…Prior studies disclosed that many factors are associated with diarrhea among under five years children. Among those; child’s age [ 7 , 14 – 16 ], mother/caregiver’s educational status [ 8 , 14 – 18 ], place of residency [ 7 , 15 , 19 ], not vaccinated to Rota [ 8 ], maternal/caregiver’s age [ 17 ], travel time to the water sources [ 17 ], wealth index [ 7 , 15 , 17 , 18 ], birth interval [ 16 ], unimproved sources of drinking water [ 16 ], exclusive breast feeding, timing of breast feeding initiation [ 7 ], regional location [ 7 ], mother’s working status [ 7 ] and unimproved toilet facilities [ 9 ].…”

Factors associated with diarrhoea and acute respiratory infection in children under-5 years old in Ghana: an analysis of a national cross-sectional survey

“…Our study also found that children aged 6-11 months and 12-23 months had higher odds of diarrhoea and ARI compared to their peers aged 0-5 months. This finding is consistent with many previous studies [11,[33][34][35][36]. Children within the ages of 0-5 months in Ghana are usually exclusively breastfed [8], and therefore our observed finding may be a reflection of the important role exclusive breast feeding plays in reducing diarrhoea and respiratory infection in children who are exclusively breastfed [37,38].…”

“…This is not surprising as education helps women to be well informed on how to access and apply information on child health. This finding in our study has been reported by other studies [16,33]. We also found that children in the richest households had lower odds of diarrhoea compared to children in the poorest households.…”