| Summary: | Diarrhea is the second leading cause of death among children in the world and medical cost to deal with diarrhea is significantly high. WHO and UNICEF recommend the use of zinc to treat diarrhea on children. This research was aimed at assessing the influence of giving zinc supplement on the diarrhea duration, length of stay and diarrhea frequency, and to identify the amount of direct medical cost borne by the patient utilizing zinc in order to treat diarrhea.
This research employed non-experimental descriptive design. Data were taken retrospectively from medical record and financial office of PKU Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta Hospital. The research subjects were child patients aged 1 - < 15 years old suffering acute diarrhea, using antibiotic, without other diseases, and treated as inpatient during the period of January 1 until December 31 2011. The number samples that met the inclusion criteria were 67 patients for each zinc and control group. The analyzed data included the characteristics of patients, diarrhea duration in the hospital, length of stay, diarrhea frequency and amount of medical cost. Data were analyzed descriptive quantitatively and statistically to compare the means of variables between both groups.
The research result indicated that the group receiving zinc had shorter diarrhea duration of ±0.45 day (p<0,05), shorter length of stay of ±0.09 day (p>0,05), lower diarrhea frequency from the second to the fourth day of the treatment (p<0,05). In regard to cost analysis, means of total medical cost of zinc group was lower than that of control group (p<0,05) as much as Rp. 1.155.407. However, it could not be concluded that the use of Zinc was efficient. The use of zinc was effective in treating acute diarrhea on children treated as inpatients.
|
|---|