Socio-demographic factors as determinants of gastroenteritis among children under five admitted into children specialist hospital, Ilorin, Kwara State

Abstract

Gastroenteritis is one of the major diseases in childhood responsible for high morbidity and mortality among under 5 children in Nigeria. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of maternal age, family income and family size on the causes of gastroenteritis. This study adopted descriptive research design of cross sectional method; purposive sampling technique was used to select a sample size of 220 mothers of under 5 children in children specialist hospital Ilorin. The researchers-structured and developed questionnaire was administered on the selected mothers. The validity of the instrument was determined by its face and content base on the research objectives, while the reliability was determined using test re-test method with reliability coefficient of 0.87using Pearson correlation coefficient. Data for this study was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) Version, 23.0. Descriptive statistics of frequency and percentage was used to present results, while inferential statistics of chi square was used to test the research hypotheses. The findings of this study shows that maternal age, family income and family size are determinant factors for gastroenteritis among under five children admitted in children specialist hospital Ilorin, Kwara State. The study however, concluded that factors such as maternal age, family size and family income significantly determined the cause of gastroenteritis among children  under five years admitted into Children Specialist Hospital, Ilorin, Kwara State. Based on this conclusion, we recommended that mothers be health educated on the importance of ripe marriage to prevent poor parental care of children in order to reduce infant morbidity and mortality and the government should intensify efforts on women empowerment and improve the maternal and child health care services in the communities.

Keyword: Socio-demographic Factors, Gastroenteritis, Mothers, Under 5 Children