A study to assess the knowledge and practice regarding sanitation and hygiene among women in parts of Delhi, India

Abstract

Background: Poor hygienic practices, inadequate water supply, and poor sanitary conditions play a major role in the spread of infectious diseases. So, safe drinking water and basic sanitation is of crucial importance to the prevention of health problems.
 Objects: To study the knowledge, attitude, and practices related to drinking water and sanitation facilities among the urban slum population of different areas of Delhi.
 Design: Open label, observational, non-randomized, community-based study.
 Methodology: A cross-sectional study was designed to evaluate the knowledge of 297 females of different slum areas of Delhi regarding sanitation and hygiene, their attitude, and practices were collected using a previously validated questionnaire. The data obtained was analyzed on MS Office (Excel).
 Major Outcome: Major Outcome: Findings of the study showed that 42% of the subjects had average knowledge and 75 % of the subjects followed unsafe practices on water, sanitation and hygiene.
 Result: The study was conducted on 297 housewives having mean age as 34.14 years living mostly in joint family with 6000- 12000 monthly family income. 76.4% had toilet in their household but lack proper water disposal system.
 Conclusion: Conclusion: The knowledge and practice on hygiene and sanitation among the households of slum areas of Delhi was found to be satisfactory. This study found significant association between knowledge, practice, age, education, occupation, family income per month. It was observed that young women had good knowledge however financial constrains rule the roast.
 Keywords: Sanitation and hygiene; Knowledge; Attitude; Practices, WASH.