Knowledge and Practice of Personal Hygiene among Rural Women in Northern Bangladesh

Abstract

Background: Sanitation and hygiene have huge impact on human health particularly on death and morbidity of children which are influenced by mother knowledge and practice on the issues.
 Aim: The study aimed to assess the present situation of knowledge and practices of basic health hygiene and sanitation of the rural farm families in Northern Bangladesh with a view to find the ground for development initiative towards a better health and sanitation systems. The study also aimed to identify the regional variations in health and sanitation systems in Northern Bangladesh with a view to offer policy support and development.
 Methodology: The study was conducted in six sub-districts of three poverty-prone districts – Gaibandha, Rangpur and Kurigram. The multi-stage cluster sampling process yielded a sample size of 386 household (HH) covering 24 different villages. Data was collected by trained assistants following a face-to-face interview using structured interview schedule. Descriptive statistics were used to organize the table with results. Chi-square test was used to assess the regional variations in knowledge and practice of hygiene and sanitation.
 Results: About 70% families use unsafe latrines where a significant portion of them are open pit types (33%) having no latrines floor (32%) and wall (75%). More than half of the child-bearing mothers have poor knowledge therefore they directly through the feces outside and did not wash hand properly after cleaning the defecated children and toilets/potty. Many of them do not know that they should wash hand before breast feeding (50%), prior to food preparation (77%), after cleaning of animals (79%) and after any activity (97%). Women of Gaibanda district was the better user of flash toilet and good habit of washing hand after toilet use. Better disposal of domestic waste was observed among the women of Kurigram District. In all respect women of Rangpur was mediocre in hygiene practice. Except disposal of children feces and hand washing before eating significant regional variations were found in type of toilet used, disposal of domestic waste, hand washing before food preparation, hand washing before feeding their child, after toilet use, after cleaning toilet of child and after cleaning the animal.
 Conclusion: More awareness program and subsidy policy should be taken for improving sanitation and hygiene with keeping in mind the regional variations in hygiene practice.