Economic burden of acute watery diarrhoea in children aged 6 – 36 months presenting to a tertiary hospital in South-East Nigeria

Introduction: Globally,acute watery diarrhoea is amajor cause of childhood morbidityand mortality. It is the fourthleading cause of death in childrencontributing as high as 11% of allchildhood deaths. In Nigeria,acute watery diarrhoea causes240,106 deaths per year. Out ofpocket expenditure is a majorsource of healthcare funding inNigeria, hence treatment of acutewatery diarrhoea places extra financialburden on the familiesespecially those in the low socioeconomicclass.Objective: To determine the costof treatment of acute watery diarrhoeain children aged 6 to 36months.Methodology: This was a crosssectional study conducted on children aged 6-36 months who presented with acute watery diarrhoea from January through October 2017. Data obtained using interviewer-administered questionnaire, included sociodemography, duration of illness, treatment cost of the index diarrhoeal episode before presenting to our facility, transportation cost, food and other incidental cost, duration of hospitalization. Diagnostic tests requested and medications prescribed were obtained from the patient’s medical file. Information on drug cost, diagnostic test cost and hospital bed day cost were obtained from Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital (NAUTH) central pharmacy, NAUTH main laboratoryand account section respectively. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20 was used for data analysis. Result: Seventy two patients were recruited for the study, of whom 47(65.0%) were males giving a male female ratio of 1.9:1. Forty eight (66.6%) of the study participants belonged to the lower socioeconomic class while 22(30.6%) and 2(2.8%) belonged to the middle and upper socioeconomic  class respectively. A mean total treatment post per diarrhoea episode derived from this study was # 37,572.2 ± #12,479.0 which at the time of the study was equivalent to US$ 104.7 ± US$ 34.8. This is well above the then Nigerian minimum monthly wage of 18,000.0 (US$ 50.1). Conclusion: The result of this study showed that the economic burden of acute watery diarrhoea is quite enormous especially to the low socio-economic group. Prevention and improvement of home treatment of diarrhoea may reduce the treatment cost. Key words: Acute watery diarrhoea, Cost, Children, Hospita