Hygiene behaviour practises as discriminants for the occurrence of childhood diarrhoea.

Structured observations of events during food preparation, feeding and defeacation management were conducted in four rural Nigerian communities as part of a longitudinal study aimed at identifying environmental and behavioural risk factors for diarrhoea. A discriminant analysis model was developed for distinguishing between children who had no diarrhoea and those who had diarrhoea during the study period. The behavioural practises associated with occurrence of diarrhoea included disposal of faeces around the house; careless handling of cleaning material; use of feeding bottles; purchase of cooked food from food vendors; and the presence of domestic animals in food preparation places. Using age and defeacation scores as discriminants, the sensitivity of the discriminant model was 73% its specificity 68%, while 71% of cases were correctly classified.