ABSTRACT
Background and purpose: Diarrhea diseases are major causes of morbidity, with attack rates ranging from 2 to 12 cases illnesses per person per year in both developed and developing countries. In addition, diarrhea illnesses account for an estimated 12, 600 deaths each day in children in Asia, Africa and Latin America. This study is therefore intended to study factors affecting, diarrhea diseases in children
Methods and Materials: Age, sex, kind of feeding, weight, kind of acute diarrhea and knowledge of patients' mothers in 222 Children with an admission diagnosis of diarrhea admitted to Emam Reza and Dr Shaikh Hospitals in Mashad were studied in 2004 summer
Results: There was no correlation between diarrhea and sex [56.5% boys and 40.5% girls]. There were a good correlation between bottle feeding, weight under 3rd percentile [P=0.001], knowledge of patients` mothers and diarrhea [p=0.001]. There was a good correlation between age and kind of diarrhea [inflammatory and non-inflammatory] too
Conclusion: Bottle feeding, underweight and low knowledge of patients` mothers are the most common predisposing factors in diarrheal diseases of children