PERSISTENT DIARRHEA IN NIGERIAN CHILDREN AGED LESS-THAN 5 YEARS - A HOSPITAL-BASED STUDY

To identify possible risk factors for persistent diarrhoea, 307 childr en with acute diarrhoea presenting at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria over a 10-month period from July 1993 to April 1994 w ere followed up prospectively until the resolution of the illness. The children were aged 6-60 months. In 36 (11.7%) of them, diarrhoea beca me persistent (i.e. lasted more than 14 days). This hospital frequency of 11.7% of persistent diarrhoea is, as expected, higher than the fig ures from previous community-based studies of diarrhoea from Nigeria. The major factor associated with persistent diarrhoea was poor nutriti onal status. Mean z scores of weight-for-height and weight-for-age wer e significantly lower in the persistent diarrhoea group, while mean z scores of height-for-age were similar in the two groups. The frequenci es of occurrence of undernutrition, marasmus and kwashiorkor were also higher in the persistent diarrhoea group. Therefore, in common with s tudies from other regions of the world, malnutrition is an important r isk factor for persistent diarrhoea in this group of Nigerian children . The implication of these findings is that reduction in the prevalenc e of malnutrition may he associated with reduction in the proportion o f acute diarrhoeal episodes that eventually progress to persistent dia rrhoea.