Assessment Of Utility Of Sanitary Latrines In Rural Population – A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND About one billion people in the developing world, or 15 percent of the global population, practice open defecation. India is the country with the highest number of people practicing open defecation: around 490 million people. India now accounts for about 60% of the world’s open defecation with most of it being prevalent in rural areas. The scenario of the availability and use of Sanitary Latrine facilities has indeed seen a steady improvement but still more than half of India’s rural population does not have access to proper sanitation services. A very few comprehensive studies on this topic have been done in the state of Karnataka till date. Karnataka ranks 8th among all the states of India when it comes to prevalence of open defecation with around 53% of its rural residents still practicing it. OBJECTIVES 1. To assess the utility of sanitary latrines in rural population. 2. To know the knowledge and attitude regarding use of sanitary latrines METHODOLOGY This rural population based cross-sectional study was conducted among 600 individuals of Primary Health Centre, Vantamuri, attached to Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, KLE University Belagavi- India. The study was conducted over a period of one year from January 2016 to December 2016. A pre-designed and pre-tested questionnaire was used to collect the data from the participants. RESULTS 88.33% of the total participants had provision of sanitary privy and used it while the rest 11% did not have the facility and followed open defecation. 79.33% of the study participants used the sanitary privy owned by their household while 9% used community toilet facilities. Most of the study participants cited Cost/Poverty as the main reason for sanitary privy while almost all of the study participants cited Comfort/Convenience as the main reason for using sanitary privy. 90.16% of participants said that they have heard about “Swachh Bharat Abhiyan”. 84.1% of respondents believed open defecation is the root cause of many diseases while 84.33% of the study participants believed that the most perceived disadvantage of open defecation was that it was unhygienic. The association of socio-economic status and type of housing with use of sanitary privy was found to be significant. CONCLUSION AND INTERPRETATION The present community based study reported a higher prevalence and use of sanitary privy. Most of the sanitary privies were owned by their households and were of water-seal type. Most of the study participants cited Cost/Poverty as the main reason for sanitary privy while almost all of the study participants cited Comfort/Convenience as the main reason for using sanitary privy. Majority of respondents believed open defecation is the root cause of many diseases and the most perceived disadvantage of open defecation was that it was unhygienic. The association of socio-economic status and type of housing with use of sanitary privy was found to be significant.