Magnitude of elimination disorders and associated factors Among children age 5–14 year-old attending pediatric outpatient At wolaita sodo university comprehensive specialized hospital, Wolaita sodo, south Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Elimination disorder occurs when a child aged five and above urinate urine or aged four and above defecates feces in inappropriate locations voluntary or involuntary. Pediatric elimination disorders are not well understood by parents, teachers, medical professionals, and mental health practitioners. However, this problem is stressful for both children and parents. Despite this, the magnitude and its associated factors of this problem are rarely investigated in Ethiopia. Objective: This study aimed at assessing the magnitude of elimination disorder and its associated factors in children aged 5–14 years old. Method: A hospital-based cross-sectional study was conducted from September 22 to November 22, 2022 at Wolaita Sodo University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital in Wolaita Sodo, South Ethiopia. A systematic random sampling technique was employed to select 423 study subjects. The data were gathered using a structured face-to-face interviewer administered questionnaire. Development of symptom score for dysfunctional elimination syndrome tool of vancover questionnaire was used to screen elimination disorders. Logistic regression model was used to determine the association between the outcome and independent variables and the 95% CI odds ratio and p-value < 0.05 were used to determine the strength of association between the outcome variable and explanatory variables. Result: Atotal of 417 children were included in this study with response rate of 98.6%. The overall magnitude of elimination disorder among children age 5-14 year old in this syudy was (n 70, 16.8%), in boys (n 47, 17.3%) and girls (n 23, 15.75%). Specifically, the prevalence of enuresis was (n 64, 15.3%), encopresis (n 15, 3.6%), both enuresis and encopresis or combined elimination disorder (n 9, 2.2%). Age 9-11year (AOR=3.2;CI:1.09, 9.43), family size (AOR= 3.4; CI:1.78, 6.56), family history of elimination disorder (AOR=3.9; CI:2.12, 7.45), emotional problem (AOR=2.2; CI:1.18, 4.05), hyperactive problem (AOR= 3.8; CI:1.83, 7.83), child had low toilet training skill (AOR=5.9; CI:2.61, 13.33) and bad parenting practices were poor suprevesion (AOR=4.4; CI:1.29, 14.69) were significantliy associated with elimination disorder. Conclusion and Recommendation: In this study, approxiametly one in five children had elimination disorder and factors associated with elimination disorders are child age, large family size, positive family history of elimination disorder, emotional and hyperactive problem, bad parenting practices and low toilet traing skill. Therefore, wholestic approach, early detection and management are important to referse the impact of the problem.