Zinc utilisation, trends, and predictors among under-five children with diarrhoea in Ethiopia: A pooled analysis.

Zinc has a significant benefit in saving children's lives. It decreases severity, diarrhoeal duration, and death rates. However, evidence on zinc utilisation, trends, and predictors among under-five children with diarrhoea in Ethiopia was sparse and inconclusive. This study aimed to assess the pooled zinc utilisation, trends, and predictors among under-five children with diarrhoea in Ethiopia. This study used Ethiopian demographic and health survey (EDHS-2005-2016) data with a total weighted sample size of 29,525 among under-five children with diarrhea. A multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression analysis was used to identify predictors of zinc utilisation. An adjusted odds ratio (AOR) along with a 95% confidence interval (CI) was used to estimate the strength of the association. The pooled zinc utilisation among under-five children in Ethiopia was 8.96% (95% CI: 7.44, 10.76%). In Ethiopia, the proportion of zinc utilisation by under-five children decreased from 0.22% (95% CI: 0.07, 0.74%) in EDHS 2005 to 0.04% (95% CI: 0.00, 0.22%) in EDHS 2011, and sharply increased to 33.60% in EDHS 2016. After adjusting for other background characteristics, having mothers complete primary education [AOR = 3.16, 95% CI: 1.57, 6.35] was a significant predictor of zinc utilisation among under-five children with diarrhea. The findings revealed that zinc utilisation was considerably low among Ethiopian under-five children with diarrhoea compared to reports from low-income countries. Ethiopia should pursue strategies to boost zinc utilisation in this group of population.
Competing Interests: The author has no conflicts of interest.
(Copyright: © 2024 Girma Beressa. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.)