Risk Factors Associated With Under-Five Diarrhea and Their Effect on Under-Five Mortality in Rwanda: Secondary Data Analysis of 2014–2015 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (Rdhs).

Abstract Aims: Diarrhea claimed to be among the leading cause of childhood mortality in developing countries include Rwanda despite its simple protection measures. The current study intended to elucidate the image of childhood diarrhea and to sort out which strong causes are linked to this phenomenon in Rwanda. Therefore, contribute, on the basis of a quantitative analysis outcome, to good policymaking oriented to the enhancement of the welfare of children in Rwanda and the second target of SDGs of ensuring child survival.Methods: Data were obtained from RDHS2015 in the child’s file. Following the inclusion criteria of having at least one under-five child in a household and that child has full records on her/his diarrhea status during the last two weeks preceding the survey, a total of 7474 children met the criteria and were thus included in the analysis. The selection of variables was guided by Genser B. and colleagues’ theory. Descriptive, and bivariate analyses were performed. Identified variables were statistically associated with childhood diarrhea in Rwanda and were subsequently considered into the multivariate analysis of the strongest causes of childhood diarrhea in Rwanda.Results: The descriptive analysis revealed that among 7474 sampled under-five children, 12.11% have been infected by diarrhea during the two weeks preceding the survey. The bivariate analysis revealed that type of place of residence, mother’s education level, anemia level of the child, type of toilet facility, sharing the toilet with other households, time to get water source, source of drinking water, poverty, child’s age, and main floor material are statistically associated with the prevalence of childhood diarrhea in Rwanda and thus was selected to be predicting childhood diarrhea based on their significance level and confidence interval. The reduced model of binary logistic regression revealed that only being aged below three years, living in a poor family, and uses an improved toilet increases the chances of childhood diarrhea infection. Conclusions: Childhood diarrhea can be effectively managed with reasonable outcomes by strengthening the sanitation system with more focus on rural areas families especially the poorest families; reinforcement of the Ministry of Health, and other related measures to mitigate the identified issues. Also, periodically research is highly needed on all levels of children not only on diarrhea in order to help national level planning in various sectors.