Prevalence of Pediatric Gastroenteritis Disease in Al- Diwaniyah Governorate-Iraq

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the gastroenteritis disease among hospitalized children inWomen and Children Hospital, Al-Diwaniyah Governorate-Iraq, between August 2020 and January2021.Data about age, gender, feeding, clinical symptoms and the causal agents were collected. A total of723 children were screened, 616 patients (85.2%) of the infants and children under five years oldwith gastroenteritis disease, including 332 patient males (53.9%) and 284 patient females (46.1%).The lowest infection was recorded among 60 infant patients (9.7%), while the highest infections wererecorded among 392 patients (63.6 %) of one year old as compared to 164 patients (26.6 %) amongchildren above one to five years old. Also, results revealed two types of diarrhea, acute and chronicdiarrhea. There was no significant difference between patients gender. The acute diarrhea was revealedthe highest percentage of all cases (78.4 %) and the remaining cases were chronic diarrhea (21.6%). Concerning the relation between the types of feeding and diarrhea, higher percentage (52.2%) wasrecorded with the bottle feeding, while the lowest percentage (20.1%) was with breast feeding. Theclinical symptoms among infected children hadgastroenteritis were diarrhea, stomach pains, vomiting,fever, urinary tract infection and malnutrition. Also, results showed that diarrhea infections usuallyhappen in the seasons with high-moderate temperatures. This study concluded that most significantfactors that caused the incidence of gastroenteritis in children were type of water, feeding or complementaryfeeding practices and mothers’ lack of care to reduce the risk of diarrhea among children under five yearsold.