Background Diarrhoea is a major cause of mortality among under-five children, especially in less developed countries. Previous studies on childhood diarrhoea have largely focused on biomedical methods with little attention given to community-based approach to reduce the prevalence of the disease in the slums, classified in literature among areas of high diarrhoea incidence. The key question is does childhood sanitation practices influence the incidence of diarrhea? This study, was therefore, designed to examine the association between childhood sanitation practices and incidence of diarrhea using community-based approach.
Methods The value beliefs and planned behavior theories were adopted as framework, while cross-sectional survey was use to elicit data from 900 mothers of under-five children who had lived in the study locations for at least 12 months preceding the research and 10 In-depth interviews was conducted.
Results There was a positive significant association between defecating with unimproved toilet facilities (χ2=42.167, p<0.05), cleaning buttocks with inappropriate materials (χ2=4.274, p<0.05), disposing faeces around household environments (χ2=10.542, p<0.05), and childhood diarrhea. The odds was higher among children whose mothers had no education (OR=1.560), widow (OR=5.542), poor (OR=1.556), and children that defecates with unhygienic toilet facilities (OR=7.806).
Conclusion Community perceptions interact with poverty to influence unhygienic toilet practices in the slums. This has negative health implications on the lives of low-income and vulnerable slum dwellers. Thus, community-based education on improved sanitary practices is necessary to reduce diarrhoea prevalence.