Factores ambientales de la morbilidad infantil : Incidencia de procesos diarreicos entre 87 familias durante 10 meses de observación

Abstract

A study was made on 87 nursing infants and their family contacts to find the incidence of diarrheal episodes and the degree of malnutrition occurring among them according to the living standard of their families, and the type of housing they lived in was taken as the basis for classifying their social and economic status

The study was conducted by personnel trained for this type of researach, and it lasted for 10 months. Each index case was reviewed on an average of 3 times a month, and an interview was held with the mother to complete the data. The children were weighed every month. Coprocultures were practiced in 103 persons among 19 of the families of these children

The average incidence of the diarrheal episode was 41.6 days per child. It was highest in the first 3 months of life and decreased gradually. From age 2 onwards the incidence was similar to that of other age groups. Diarrheal incidence varied among the groups according to its housing, i.e., the poorer the dwelling, the higher the incidence, and the same phenomenon applied to malnutrition

Of the 103 persons on whom bacteriological studies were practiced, 18(17 percent) had some known enteropathogen, but none showed clinical signs of the disease

There was a great variety in the concept of the mothers of these maladies (even in the same person), but all shared a lack of knowledge of the etiology of the infection

The paper con. ...(AU)