Abstrait

Risk factors of persistent diarrhea in Iraqi children below 18 months of age for the year of 2022.

Maysaa Nihad Ibrahim

Background: The vast majority of diarrhea bouts last less than a week; however, diarrhea that lasts 14 days or more is referred to as persistent diarrhea. In general, infectious disease and pediatric gastroenterology textbooks utilize the World Health Organization (WHO) threshold of 2 weeks to distinguish between chronic and acute episodes.

Methodology: A total of 230 patients with diarrhea more than 2 weeks have examined in a hospitalbased, cross-sectional study extending from the first of January 2022 to the 1st of November 2022, with regular working hours.

Results: There is no significant difference statistically between the number of attacks of the persistent diarrhea and the type of feeding (p-value=0.7). There are statistically significant differences between vaccination status and the associated infections (p-value=0.005), between the antibiotic usage and the number of attacks (p-value=0.001) and between the stool culture and the associated infection (pvalue= 0.03) and the type of feeding (0.04).

Conclusion: In underdeveloped nations, chronic diarrhea is a major source of morbidity. To avoid difficulties, timely diagnosis and care are critical. The patient should be quickly referred to a tertiary care center for proper diagnosis and treatment.