Diarrhoea Discuss Corner: A School-Based Intervention to Promote Basic Diarrhea Awareness and Common Control Practices Among School-Age Children
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.71637/tnhj.v25i1.936Keywords:
Diarrhea, diarrhoea discuss corner, diarrhoea-causing microorganisms, control primary schools, intervention primary schoolsAbstract
Background: Diarrhoea remains a disease of public health importance in Nigeria. There have been limited studies accounting for the microorganisms responsible for causing diarrhoea among children and also no specific and deliberate strategies and programmes in primary schools in Nigeria focused on promoting basic diarrhoea awareness and control practices among children of primary school age. Therefore, this study assessed the effectiveness of diarrhoea discuss corner (DDC), which is a school-based intervention in the promotion of basic diarrhea awareness and common control practices among children of primary school age.
Methods: A quasi-experimental design was employed. The DDC was designed and set up in the intervention school (with 103 children) while the control school (with 103 children) was offered diarrhoea health talk. Two variables were presented in this study The Independent Variable, which was the intervention and the dependent Variables that included awareness of diarrhea causes, symptoms, prevention, and management practices. Primary data collected using pre-tested structured questionnaires. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package – Stata version 14.1 (Stata Corp, College Station, TX, USA).
Results: Results showed that there was a significant increase in the knowledge about diarrhoea-causing microorganisms; p = 0.0003, awareness on common preventive and management practices was (p = 0.0202) among children in the intervention primary school compared to those in the control primary school this made the overall knowledge increase to be (intervention vs. control): p = 0.0071.
Conclusion: This study demonstrated the potential of the DDC in promoting basic diarrhoea awareness and common preventive practices among children.
Downloads
References
1. Abate BB, Zemariam AB, Wondimagegn A. Knowledge, attitude, and practice of home management of diarrhea among under-five children in East Africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis. PLoS ONE. 2024;19 (2).
2. Akinrotoye K, Umar U. Combating diarrhoea in Nigeria: the way forward. J Microbiol Exp. 2018;6(4). DOI: 10.15406/jmen.2018.06.00213.
3. Bobek E, Tversky B. Creating visual explanations improves learning. Cogn Res Princ Implic. 2016;1(1):27.
4. Chard AN, Freeman MC. Design, intervention fidelity, and behavioral outcomes of a school-based water, sanitation, and hygiene cluster-randomized trial in Laos. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018; 15:570. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph15030570.
5. Duru C, Peterside O, Akinbami F. Pattern and outcomes of admissions as seen in the pediatric emergency ward of the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital, Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Niger J Paed. 2007;40 (3):232–7.
6. Gwatkin DR, Rutstein S, Johnson K, Suliman E, Wagstaff A. Socio-economic differences in health, nutrition, and population in Kenya. J Health Popul Dev Ctries. 2007;1–32.
7. Liu L, Oza S, Hogan D, Perin J, Rudan I, Lawn JE, et al. Global, regional, and national causes of under-5 mortality in 2000–15: an updated systematic analysis with implications for the Sustainable Development Goals. Lancet. 2016;388 (10063):3027–35. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736 (16) 31593-9.
8. Manetu WM, M’masi S, Recha CW. Diarrhea disease among children under 5 years of age: A global systematic review. Open J Epidemiol. 2021;11(2):207–21. DOI: 10.4236/ojepi.2021.1130.
9. Oladepo O, Oyedele AA, Adekanle DA. Knowledge and practices of caregivers regarding childhood diarrhoea in Oyo State, Nigeria. J Environ Public Health. 2018; 2018:1–8.
10. Reiner RL, Perin J, Rudan I, Lawn J. Diarrheal disease and undernutrition in the context of economic and demographic change: A subnational analysis of African countries from 2000 to 2015. Lancet Glob Health. 2022;10(5):e667–79. DOI: 10.1016/S2214-109X(22)00043-2.
11. UNICEF. School health program: Diarrhea awareness and action. Manual for diarrhea education program development and implementation. UNICEF; 2014.
12. Wang X, Liu J, Wu Y, Su B, Chen M, Ma Q, et al. Enhancing the effectiveness of infectious disease health education for children and adolescents in China: a national multicenter school-based trial. BMC Public Health. 2023; 23:1161.
13. World Health Organization. Health education: theoretical concepts, effective strategies and core competencies. WHO; 2018.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Ebikonbowei Alexis Okaba
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
The Journal is owned, published and copyrighted by the Nigerian Medical Association, River state Branch. The copyright of papers published are vested in the journal and the publisher. In line with our open access policy and the Creative Commons Attribution License policy authors are allowed to share their work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
This is an open access journal which means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or his/her institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.
The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations. While the advice and information in this journal are believed to be true and accurate on the date of its going to press, neither the authors, the editors, nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.
TNHJ also supports open access archiving of articles published in the journal after three months of publication. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g, in institutional repositories or on their website) within the stated period, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access). All requests for permission for open access archiving outside this period should be sent to the editor via email to editor@tnhjph.com.
