Assessment of Saudi Mother’s Knowledge and Attitudes towards Childhood Diarrhea and Its Management

• Main Authors: Sultan Alghadeer, Wajid Syed, Abdulaziz Alhossan, Ziyad Alrabiah, Salmeen D. Babelghaith, Mohamed N. Al Arifi, Abdulrahman Alwhaibi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-04-01
• Series: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
• Subjects: diarrhea; Saudi Arabia; knowledge; attitude; children; mother
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/3982

This study evaluates the knowledge, attitude of Saudi mothers towards diarrhea in their children and its management at home. Online cross-sectional validated online surveys, targeting Saudi mothers who are living in Saudi Arabia, are used to collect data from the beginning of March to the end of April 2019. Our results show that a total of 1140 mothers (52.1% of them were housewives) participated in the study. Approximately 40.3% of participating mothers believed that childhood diarrhea is a major problem in the Saudi community; however, almost 23% of the participants were unable to identify any critical sign of severe diarrhea, and around 66% falsely stated that diarrhea is caused by teething. Although 62% of our participating mothers knew about oral rehydration therapy (ORS), only 23.5% of them used it for their children. Adequate knowledge about the critical signs, causes, transmission, prevention, and management of childhood diarrhea should be applied in simple language to communicate the health-related information clearly.