Objective: To examine the efficacy of a skin care program in reducing the incidence of diaper dermatitis and its severity in children with diarrhea.

Material and Method: This study is quasi-experimental study, two groups posttest design. The sample was children aged 1 to 30 months old who had diarrhea. The sample was matched by age and purposively assigned to the control group and the experimental group. Each group had 20 sample. The control group received the standard skin care, and the experimental group received the skin care program to prevent diaper dermatitis. The program consists of (a) cleaning diaper area with water (b) changing disposable diaper on scheduled time and (c) applying petrolatum jelly over the skin area exposed to diaper. All instruments were tested for content validity by 3 experts in the field. The reliability of the Severity Diaper Dermatitis Form, yielding percentage of agreement of 1 (100%). Incidence of diaper dermatitis were analyzed by chi-square test and severity of diaper dermatitis were analyzed by Mann-Whitney U test

Results: The results revealed that the incidence and the severity of diaper dermatitis in experimental group was statistically significant lower than that of the control group (p=0.004 and p=0.002).

Conclusions: Results of this study showed that the skin care program to prevent diaper dermatitis in children with diarrhea effectively reduced the incidence and severity of diaper dermatitis. Results of this study may be used as a guideline and apply to nursing care of children with diarrhea.