Development of nurse -led health education programme to improve home management of childhood diarrhoea (HMCD) among mothers in Ogun State, Nigeria

Abstract

Diarrhoea remains one of the major public health concerns among children under the age of five years. Several studies, especially in developing countries, including the study setting, have reported the poor home management of childhood diarrhoea (HMCD) among mothers with under-five children. Recommended HMCD include administering Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS), zinc supplements and maintaining continuous feeding. Providing health education tailored to the needs of rural population will help in improving their home management practices of childhood diarrhoea. The purpose of the study was to develop a nurse-led health educational programme aimed at improving home management of childhood diarrhoea among mothers in Ibogun community, Ogun State, Nigeria. The study is quantitative in nature and utilised a quasi-experimental one group study design method. A total of 134 mothers with under-five children participated, selected using multistage sampling technique. This study was in three phases, the first phase involved collection of baseline data on mothers’ knowledge, attitude and practice of home management of childhood diarrhoea. The second phase consisted of conducting a nurse-led health educational intervention using a well-developed and validated health educational programme. At the last phase, the researcher collected the post-intervention data. Data were obtained using a questionnaire and an observational checklist. The questionnaire demonstrated strong content validity and excellent reliability based on test-retest analysis using Pearson correlation, with more than 90% of the items showing perfect correlations (r = 1.000). The observational checklist also showed strong content validity, with all items were yielding statistically significant Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC) values. Data collected were coded, entered and cleaned using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), Version 29.0. Analysis was conducted using descriptive and inferential statistics at a 0.05 significant level. All ethical principles guiding research involving human participants were followed all through the research process. The study findings revealed poor knowledge, negative attitude, and poor home management of childhood diarrhoea among the mother’s pre-intervention. The nurse-led intervention significantly improved mothers’ knowledge, attitude and practice of HMCD. This highlights the effectiveness of the programme and the importance of the nurse-led health education, the researcher thus recommends that this programme should be adopted by all stakeholders in improving home management of childhood diarrhoea among mothers in the state and nation at large.