الفهرس 
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Abstract
Acute gastroenteritis (AGE) is an illness caused by viral, bacterial, or parasitic infection of the intestinal tract. Illness is most common among children. Many enteric pathogens are easily transmitted through food or water or from one person to another. Gastroenteritis has been considered as a major cause of mortality in children aged less than five years old. Most of these deaths are due to dehydration and mis management or delayed management of the disease. Children gastroenteritis could be treated in the home by mothers. Adequate fluid and electrolyte replacement and maintenance followed by early refeeding are the key to effective management (Dennehy, 2019).
Important measures to prevent spread of enteric pathogens include proper sanitation methods for food processing and preparation, sanitary water supplies, pasteurization of milk, proper hand hygiene, sanitary sewage disposal, exclusion of infected people from handling food or providing health care, and exclusion of people with gastroenteritis from use of public recreational water. (WHO) recommended that mothers and caregivers should have knowledge and skills to be able to prevent gastroenteritis disease for their children (Hartman et al., 2019).
The aim of this study is to assess mothers’ prevention of gastroenteritis diseases among preschool child through:
- Assessing mothers’ knowledge about gastroenteritis diseases.
- Assessing mothers’ practices toward prevention of gastroenteritis diseases.
- Assessing preschool child health condition.
Research questions
1. What is the mothers’ knowledge about gastroenteritis diseases?
2. What are the mothers’ practices toward prevention of gastroenteritis diseases?
3. Is there relationship between mothers’ knowledge about gastroenteritis diseases and their socio demographic characteristic?
4. Is there relationship between mothers’ practices toward prevention of gastroenteritis diseases and their socio demographic characteristic?
5. Is there relationship between mothers’ knowledge and their practices toward prevention of gastroenteritis diseases?
6. Is there relationship between mothers’ practices toward prevention of gastroenteritis diseases and their child health condition?
The subject and methods of the current study will be discussed under the following four (4) designs:
I. Technical Design
II. Operational Design
III. Administrative Design
IV. Statistical Design
I. Technical Design:
A descriptive analytical study will be used to evaluate mothers’ prevention of gastroenteritis diseases among preschool child.
Setting: The study will be conducted at outpatient clinic of pediatric Department at Bassion central hospital. And their residency cover most of Gharbiea governorate.
Subject:
A purposeful sample comprised 10% of mothers and their preschool children attending outpatient clinic of pediatric Department at Bassion central hospital will be chosen according including criteria. Previous attendance rate in the previous year (2016) was 1000 case.
Criteria of selection:
Preschool children ranged between 3-5 years old. Free from other congenital disease and non-communicable diseases that cause diarrhea.
Tools of data collection:
Data collected through used the following tools:
A structured Interviewing questionnaire: It was designed by the investigator and written in simple Arabic language based on scientific literature review to gather data in relation to the following parts:
I. Socio-demographic characteristics of preschool child as age, geder and ranking and mothers as age, educational level, marital status, job, family size, monthly income and residence.
II. Past health history and preschool child life style.
III. Mother’ Knowledge about gastroenteritis diseases among preschool child. It includes meaning causes, signs and symptoms, complication and management.
Scoring system: The right answer was scored one, and that wrong was scored. These scores were summed-up and converted into a percent score.
• Score from 60 % referred to unsatisfactory knowledge.
• Score from 60% referred to satisfactory knowledge.
IV. Mothers’ reported practices toward prevention for gastroenteritis including personal hygiene of child food and environmental sanitation, suitable diet during gastroenteritis, follow up with the physician.
Scoring system: The correct done step was scored one, and that wrong or not done was scored zero. These scores were summed-up and converted into a percent score.
• Score from 60% referred to unsatisfactory practices.
• Score from 60% referred to satisfactory practices.
The current study revealed the following results:
Regarding demographic characteristics of the studied sample, mean age of mother was 26.57±5.32, 90% of mothers were married. The table shows 40% of mothers had read and write of education level, and 45% of working mothers their children were going to nursery school. Regarding the family member, 43% was 2-3 individuals, 75% of mothers were resident in rural area and 58% of the families’ economic status insufficient for need
Regarding preschool children life style the studied sample, mean age of child was 4.05±0.91, 55% of children genders were female. The table shows 86% of child had gone to nursery school, 52% were in First year of nursery school. Regarding the birth order of the child in the family, and 35% were the 4th.
Regarding to preschool children health condition the studied sample, 31% of children were under weight, 72% of children had poor skin turgor and 61% of children were sunken eyes.
Regarding to preschool children past history of gastroenteritis the studied sample, 59% of children had gastroenteritis in the past three months, 100% had a diarrhea and 90% had continuous vomiting, and abdominal pain. 41% were three times of episodes of diarrhea per day.
Regarding the period of gastroenteritis occurred, 43% of the children were from 5-10 days. 59% of children get dehydration. 40% of them were severe dehydration. 45% who are they had self-treatment at home. 41% stayed at home 4-5 days before going to hospital, 90% of child were taken treatment before going to the hospital and 90% of them were treated by administration of fluids at home
Regarding to mothers’ source of knowledge about gastroenteritis and its prevention, 36% of mother’s source knowledge about gastroenteritis and its prevention among preschool children were by nurses and 43% were by physicians.
Regarding the total knowledge score studied sample, 60% of mothers had satisfactory knowledge about gastroenteritis prevention.
Regarding mothers total reported practices score of studied samples, 58% of mothers had unsatisfactory practices and 62% of them had satisfactory practices toward preventive measures of gastroenteritis for their children.
Regarding relation between total knowledge score of the studied sample and their demographic characteristics, there were highly statistically significance relations between the total knowledge score of mothers and their marital status, level of education, work of mother, number of family members and economic status of the family.
Regarding relation between total reported practices score of the studied sample and their demographic characteristics there was highly statistically significance relation between the total reported practices score of mothers and level of education and occupation of mothers.
Regarding correlation between studied sample total knowledge score and their total reported practices score there were highly statistically significant correlation between total knowledge deference between knowledge of mothers and their practice.
Based on the findings of this study, following points are recommended:
1- Health educational program should be developed and implemented for mothers to improve and update them with the most current information about preschool children gastroenteritis prevention.
2- Health services should support the community-based interventions to reinforce the knowledge and practices of mother towards the sick children with gastroenteritis.
3- Further studied needed for ongoing assessment of mothers including large sample for generalization of results.
Based on the results of the present study and research questions, the study concluded that:
The current study sample showed that mean age of mothers was 26.57±5.32, 90% of mothers were married, less than half of mothers had poor knowledge regarding prevention of gastroenteritis, more than two thirds of them didn’t have knowledge about the cause of gastroenteritis. More than one third of them had unsatisfactory reported practices regarding prevention of gastroenteritis. There was highly statistically significant correlation between total knowledge of mothers and their practice toward gastroenteritis and its prevention.