Jedi jedi, a Yoruba cultural disease with implications for home management of diarrhoea

Oral rehydration therapy using home-made salt sugar solution (SSS) has been found to be a life saver when young children have diarrhoea. Unfortunately cultural factors have discouraged use of SSS in many countries. Disbelief in its efficacy or divergent local conceptions of the disease process have often been responsible. In western Nigeria some mothers are suspicious of SSS because sugar is believed to cause a more serious ethnomedical condition known as jedi jedi. Mothers who attended small group education sessions at an oral rehydration therapy unit where they learned to make and then taste SSS did not express these reservations about the rehydration drink. It became necessary therefore to survey the community to learn more about local perceptions of jedi jedi before developing educational outreach. Jedi jedi was described with various anal, abdominal and lower back manifestations which were believed to have a deleterious effect on a person's sexual performance. Sweet or sugary foods were the main attributed cause of the condition. Although small group educational sessions are ideal for addressing this problem, future effort will also concentrate on providing opportunity for tasting so that participants in large group and community settings will perceive for themselves that the solution is in fact not too sweet if mixed properly.