Comparisson of two methods to asses hydration state by nurses in children with acute diarrheaThe need to acurarely assess hydration state in children with acute diarrhea by medical and paramedical personnel, arises from the fact that diorrheal disease is still an important cause of deotn in some places of the world.With the hypotesis that the method of Fortin and Parent used by nurses, improves the assessment of hydration of children with acute diarrhea, 76 children 24 months of age or less were studied using this method and the usual clinical assessment.The gold standard was the weight gain once the child was rehydrated.The prevalence of dehydration was 63,8%.Male and children of 6 months and more predominated.The tested method misclassified 50% of the children, whereas usual clinical asessrnent did so in only 27,63% of them (p < 0,05).Overestimation of dehydration was higher with the method of Fortin and Parent 147,4% vs 25%) (p < 0,05).Underestimation was equal for both methods.No influence of age or nutritional status in the evaluation of patients was observed.Usual clinical asessrnent showed higher specificity, positive predictive value and efficiency than Fortin Parent's method, and this late, when used by nurses, does not improve the assessment of the first one.