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Mothers' perceptions about childhood diarrhoea in rural Mexico
Abstract:
Diarrhea is a common illness and can be life-threatening. Mothers are used to dealing with diarrhea and have an ample repertoire of home-based practices, traditional treatments, and Western-style medicine to manage diarrheal episodes. However, program planners often overlook and/or underestimate this knowledge, and by so doing they constrain the possible impact of educational messages and intervention programs designed to treat diarrhea and to promote oral rehydration therapy. This study addresses the "popular epidemiology" of diarrhea, in an effort o highlight data that may prove useful for planners of diarrhea management programs. The authors found that when mothers assess the severity of diarrhea, they consider an increase in the usual number of stools passed/day, as well as the color, smell, and liquid content of the stools. However, they also place special consideration on how much the episode of diarrhea interfered with their daily activities. When considering the worsening or improvement of their child during the most commonly used, and that during diarrhea, mother s were more prone to modify the usual diet fed to the child than to withhold food. (author's)