ABSTRACT
This hospital-based case-control study was conducted from September 1998 to January 1999 in Metro Manila, Philippines. General objective of the study is to determine the association between selected hygiene behavior and urinary tract infection (UTI) among children aged 6-12 years. Specifically, the study is designed to examine the relationship between UTI and urination, defecation, washing and bathing habits. Twenty-three cases of children with UTI and an equal number of controls were recruited in four tertiary hospitals. The study association was determined by using odds ratio, the chi-square test and the Fisher exact test, where appropriate, in simple analysis. Furthermore, exact logistic regression analysis was applied to overcome the problem of small sample size. The data suggested that bathing habit less than daily, holding of urination during daytime, and washing habit after defecation might have risk effects on UTI. There was not enough evidence of significant association between UTI and other study exposures. Among extraneous variables, age group or school enrollment of children had a borderline significant association with UTI after adjusted simultaneously for selected variables. This study served as a pilot of the Preventive Nephrology Project (Department of Health, Philippines) in determining selected risk factors of