بررسي عوامل خطرزاي موثر در اسهال هاي طول كشيده كودكان

Evaluation of Underlying Risk Factors of Persistent Diarrhea

Background and objectives : Diarrhea with an acute onset and lasting at least for 14 days is termed as persistent diarrhea.It is one of the major cause of morbidity and mortality in diarrheal diseases .The purpose of this study was to identify the incidence and underlying risk factors associated with persistent diarrhea . Materials and methods : During a 7- year retrospective study, 150 medical files of patients with persistent diarrhea were reviewed . Results : On an average,10% of all patients admitted with diarrhea had persistent diarrhea.There was, however, a rate decline from 1 I% to 7.5% during the six years from 1993 till 1999. The highest incidence of persistent diarrhea in infants younger than 6 months was among those who feeded with cow milk or formula diet (50%), and in infants elder than 6 months it was among those who had received low protein calori and were not on breast feeding (40%) .Almost all patients with persistent diarrhea had some degree of malnutrition and all of them had received different kinds of antibiotics along with anti diarrheal drugs. Conclusion : This study showed that breast feeding as well as improvement of nutrition during diarrhea are the most effective factors involved in reducing the rate of persistent diarrhea .