Vol. 7, Issue 3, Part F (2021)

Despite significant worldwide progression in reducing child deaths over the last decades, diarrhea remains the leading cause of mortality in children under 5 years of age. Therefore, mother’s knowledge about diarrhea is critically important.

Objectives: The main objective of this study was to assess the knowledge of the mothers regarding diarrhea, its prevention and home management and to find out the association between knowledge regarding prevention and home- management of Diarrhea with selected demographic variables among mothers of under five children.

Method: Non - experimental, descriptive design was adopted for the study. The sample consisted of 187 mothers of under-five years children residing in the selected villages of Panikhaiti, Guwahati, Assam. The sample was selected by using purposive sampling technique. The tools used for data collection was a set of demographic variables and structured knowledge questionnaire consist of 30 question. Content validity of the tool was ensured by verifying it with experts from the field of pediatric and community health nursing.

Result: The data were analysed and interpreted in terms of the objectives and hypothesis of the study. Descriptive and inferential statistic were used for data analysis: the level of significance was at 0.05% reveals that introduction of diarrhea 6 items had a mean of 3.47 with a standard deviation of 1.37 and mean % of 57.8% sign and symptom has 2 item had a mean of 0.76 with a standard deviation of 0.72 and mean % of 38% complication has 1 items had a mean of 0.36 with a standard deviation of 0.48 and mean % of 36% home –management of 11 items had a mean of 3.87 with a standard deviation of 2.50 and mean % of 35.2% and prevention has 10 items had a mean of 4.57 with a standard deviation of 2.42 and mean % of 45.7%. Based on the level of knowledge out of total 187 mothers 86 (46%) have moderately adequate knowledge, 72 (38.5%) have inadequate knowledge and 29 (15.5%) have adequate knowledge regarding diarrhea, its prevention and home - management. It also revealed that there is a significant association between knowledge of the mother regarding diarrhea with demographic variables such as age of children, type of family, number of children, source of water, education of the head of the family, family monthly’s income and socio-economic status of the family.

Conclusion: we conclude that the mother had moderately adequate knowledge about the diarrhea, its prevention and management and there is significant association with knowledge score with their demographic variables hence hypothesis (H1) is accepted.