Child Survival in the Third World: A Functional Analysis of Oral Rehydration Therapy Dissemination Campaigns

Abstract

About 4 million children die every year as a result of dehydration caused by acute diarrhoea. Oral rehydration therapy (ORT) is designed to prevent dehydration. In the past 10 years, several campaigns have been conducted throughout the world, mostly sponsored by the World Health Organization, to disseminate ORT, particularly in developing countries. This paper presents a review of 14 ORT campaigns categorising their components according to whether the researchers used antecedents, behaviours, and/or consequences. Only three campaigns manipulated all three components. Antecedent events were manipulated in all of the studies. A skills training component appears to influence the effectiveness of the campaign, since several new behaviours and complex discriminations need to be learned for people to use ORT correctly. The benefits of functionally analysing the components of current ORT campaigns are highlighted.