ABSTRACT
Background: Very little scientifically based information is available on cause-specific mortality rates of diarrhoea among all regions and populations wherein an inequitable proportion exits in low-income households, which have fewer resources and less knowledge to manage burden than high-income households. The strategic purpose of the study is to identify gaps in care seeking in order to make changes in approach to address these gaps either directly by working with the community and by doing area specific advocacy to improve service delivery through government channels.Methods: The study was conducted in nine locations (6 rural and 3 urban) of India. The ethical and confidentiality parameters of conducting verbal autopsies were followed and random sampling methodology was adapted.Results: Respondents of our study attributed 22% deaths to diarrhoea. From the study, it is revealed that children who passed stool for 5 or more number of times in a day are more likely to die 1.5 times than the children who passed stool for 3 times a day. Children having diarrhoea for 5 days or more than 5 days are more likely to die 1.6 times in comparison to the children who have had diarrhoea for 3 days. Approximately seven of the ten children died within five days of treatment.Conclusions: Information on diarrheal diseases, its determinants in India and preventive and control strategies in light of recent developments need to be reviewed for better planning and organization of health services within the community.
ABSTRACT
Background: Diarrhoea has evident itself among the leading causes of under-five childhood mortality globally as well as in India. Although the benefits of zinc supplementation in diarrhoea management have been established, there remain many barriers to the widespread implementation of this treatment strategy. In India, a very small proportion of children in need, 20 per cent in urban and merely 5 per cent in rural, have access to zinc supplementation. The study aimed to assess zinc adherence in the community and find out the preferential mode of zinc as tablet or syrup, to stick to the scheduled adherence.Methods: The proposed method of study is a simple household survey complimented by secondary research around the preference and usage of zinc and ORS among under five children, suffered from diarrhoea in the last 14 days preceding the survey date.Results: The study revealed that 95 per cent of the respondents preferred zinc syrup over zinc tablet for treatment of diarrhoea due to its ease to administer and palatable taste to children. Eighty nine per cent of the total urban and 62 per cent of total rural respondents received zinc in syrup form, indicating the preferred mode of zinc by service providers over tablets.Conclusions: It has been observed that the caregivers tend to give the complete dosage of zinc if it is available in the syrup form. However, it is important to generate evidence to understand the preferential mode of zinc; tablet or syrup in terms of administration of drug, its usage and its cost.