Abstract:
Hand foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is an infection disease caused by Enterovirus. It is common in children under 5 years old. In severe cases; death may occur. A hospital based case-control study was applied to identify factors associated with HFMD among children aged under five years old in Chiang Rai province. Nine hospitals in Chiang Rai province were selected as the study setting. Cases were children who were diagnosed as HFMD and were admitted in a hospital. Controls were children who were not diagnosed of HFMD but admitted in the same hospital as a case. A ratio of case and control was 1:4. The total of case was 58 cases, and 232 controls. A validated questionnaire was used to collect the data from medical record. Logistic regression was used to determine the associations between factors and HFMD.
Of 58 cases almost were male (63.8%) aged 1-2 years (67.2%). In multivariate analysis, four variables were found significantly associated with HFMD; (a) children aged < 1 year had a 6.28 times (95%CI = 1.19-33.04) greater odds to develop HFMD than those aged ≥ 1 year; (b) children weight at birth < 2,500 gram had a 2.81 times (95%CI = 1.03-7.66) greater odds to develop HFMD than those who had weigh at birth > 2,500 grams; (c) children who had under and over standard growth development had a 4.46 times (95%CI = 1.77-11.26) and 4.25 times (95%CI = 2.11-8.57) greater odds to develop HFMD than those who had standard growth respectively; (d) Caregiver who had occupation of housewife had a 3.27 times (95%CI = 1.46-7.30) greater odds to develop HFMD than those caregiver who had occupation of farmer/ employee.
In conclusion Factors associated with HFMD are related to factor of children and caregiver. It is important to focus children development in all ages; starting in the womb and providing good care to children.