Prevalence of and risk factors associated with diarrhoeal diseases among under five years old children in Rwanda

Abstract

Diarrhoea among under 5 years children and its associated risk factors: A secondary data analysis of Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey, 2014-2015. Background: Diarrhoea disease is a worldwide public health issue and it was responsible for approximately 751,000 childhood deaths in 2010. Low and middle-income countries (LMIC) of Africa and part of Asia are more affected. Risk factors for diarrhoea have important implications for planning suitable interventions and appropriate strategies to decrease the impact of the disease. Methods: This is a secondary data analysis from Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS 2014-2015) which is a population-based cross-sectional study design that involved 7856 under five years children from 12,793 households and data analysis was done with SPSS. Descriptive statistics were computed to obtain the prevalence of diarrhoeal among under five. Additionally, to identify risk factors associated with diarrhoea, univariate and multivariate analysis were computed. Results: The two weeks prevalence of diarrhoea occurrence was 12.1% and Children in the age range between 6 – 24 months were more at risk (OR= 2.942; CI=2.392 - 3.617; p<.001). The study found that wealth index plays important roles in childhood diarrhea includes poorest (OR=2.036; CI=1.618-2.562; p<0.001), poorer (OR=1.913; CI=1.510-2.424; p<0.001) and middle (OR=1.459; CI= 1.135-1.874; p<0.003). The more people are poor the more the risk of childhood diarrhea. Access to improved facilities decreased the risk of contracting diarrheic diseases (OR= 0.703, CI=0.607- 0.815, p<0.001). The same applies for child immunization with rotavirus vaccine; immunized children are less likely to develop diarrheic diseases (OR=0.377; CI= 0.317 – 0.488; p<.001). Prevention and control measures are needed to obtain a lasting solution to diarrhea diseases.