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

Abstract

This study was conducted to evaluate the gastroenteritis disease among hospitalized children in
Women and Children Hospital, Al-Diwaniyah Governorate-Iraq, between August 2020 and January
2021.Data about age, gender, feeding, clinical symptoms and the causal agents were collected. A total of
723 children were screened, 616 patients (85.2%) of the infants and children under five years old
with 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 were
recorded among 392 patients (63.6 %) of one year old as compared to 164 patients (26.6 %) among
children above one to five years old. Also, results revealed two types of diarrhea, acute and chronic
diarrhea. There was no significant difference between patients gender. The acute diarrhea was revealed
the 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%) was
recorded with the bottle feeding, while the lowest percentage (20.1%) was with breast feeding. The
clinical symptoms among infected children hadgastroenteritis were diarrhea, stomach pains, vomiting,
fever, urinary tract infection and malnutrition. Also, results showed that diarrhea infections usually
happen in the seasons with high-moderate temperatures. This study concluded that most significant
factors that caused the incidence of gastroenteritis in children were type of water, feeding or complementary
feeding practices and mothers’ lack of care to reduce the risk of diarrhea among children under five years
old.