A STUDY ON PERSONAL HYGIENE AND SANITARY PRACTICES IN A RURAL VILLAGE OF MORNAG DISTRICT OF NEPAL

Background: Inadequate sanitation has direct effect on health of individual, family, communities and nation as a whole. Objective: To assess the personal hygiene and sanitary condition of the Katahari Village Development Committee (VDC). Methods: The cross sectional study was done in Katahari VDC of Morang district. A total of 80 households were randomly selected from two wards of VDC. The data were collected by interview method using interview schedule. Data were entered in Excel sheet and analyzed on SPSS program. Results: Many respondents (61%) were unable to read and write, 33% involved in private job in various factory. Knowledge of sanitation was high (90%) but only 65% of them were using soap water for hand washing. Sixty percent had no toilet facilities. There was significant association between education and toilet facilities among community people. Land holding and type of family had no significant association with toilet facilities. Conclusion: The knowledge regarding sanitation was high among community people but very poor in practice.


Introduction:
Inadequate sanitation has direct effect on health of individual, family, communities and nation as a whole.Simply, having sanitation facilities increases health well-being and economic productivity.Sanitation includes use of latrine, personal hygiene, clean surrounding, proper disposal of solid and liquid wastages and hygienic behavior.Toilet is taken as an essential and basic indicator of health and sanitation worldwide 1 .Proper sanitation is a necessary prerequisite for improvement in general health standards, productivity of labour force and good quality of life 2 .Every 20 seconds, a child around the world dies as a result of poor sanitation 3 .About 80% of all disease of the developing world is related to unsafe water and inadequate sanitation 4 .Worldwide, 5.3% of all deaths and 6.8% of all disability are caused by poor sanitation, poor hygiene and unsafe water.Nearly two-thirds (67%) of the total population go for open-air defecation and only one-third (33%) having access to a latrine 5 .The lack of access to sanitation in Nepal is striking.A total of 75% of the population is without access to sanitation, one of the highest proportions in Asia.However, the urban sanitation coverage is 75% and the rural sanitation coverage is only 20% 6 .Every day, 16 million Nepalese (around 57% of the population) practice open defecation because they have no toilets 7 .Access to sanitary system, garbage disposal and toilets are lowest among the poorest population and is better in the richer quintiles of the population.There is huge gap in access to sanitary facilities between that available to the poorest population and the national average 8 .So this study aims to find out the personal hygiene, sanitary condition of the Katahri VDC of Eastern Nepal.

Materials and Methods:
This cross sectional study was done in Katahari VDC of Morang District of Eastern Nepal which is situated near to Biratanagar.The study duration was of five month from Feb to June 2011.Two wards were selected randomly among the nine wards of VDC.Study population was 816 households.Among them sample size 80 households were selected purposively for data collection.The data was collected from every third house in each ward.The first house was selected randomly.For data collection, interview was conducted with the head of the household using a semi structured schedule.Observation was done using an observational checklist to assess the sanitary condition of latrines.Data was entered in excel sheet.Editing and coding was done and analyzed by using SPSS 15.The verbal consent was taken from the respondents before interview.

Results:
A total of 80 respondents were interviewed from 80 household in two wards (1 and 2) of Katahari VDC.Among them 72% were female and 28% were male.Most of them (82%) were Hindu and 18 % Muslim by religion.Most (61%) were unable to read and write and 32% were doing private job.Many (60%) had nuclear type of family.Sixty five percent had no land (Table-1).Most (65%) of the respondents used soap with water after defecation, 31% used water alone and 4% ash/soil with water for hand washing (Fig- 1).

Fig. 1: Hand washing practice of the Respondents Ss
Most (90%) of the respondents had awareness regarding sanitation as they mentioned that due to lack of sanitation there is diarrhoeal and other kind of diseases.Ten percent didn't have knowledge about sanitation.More than half (58%) of the houses had satisfactory sanitary condition.Regarding personal hygiene 64% had good and 36% did not have good personal hygiene (Table 2).

Fig. 2: Toilet facilities in the communities
There was significant association between education and toilet facilities (P value<0.05)but there was no significant association between land and type of family among community people (Table 3) Discussion: In this study most (65%) of the respondents were using soap water after defecation, and 31% were using water alone and 4% were using ash/soil water for hand washing.But the study done in Madhyapradesh India showed that 100% of people did not wash their hand after defecation they were using stone, soil and leaves for washing hand. 2 Similarly, the study done in Kathmandu, showed that majority (36%) of the households had used soap with water after defecation 9 .As hand washing is directly concerned with personal hygiene, it is good practice that this community was using soap water 65% after defecation.In this study Similarly, the study done by Kravid DZ showed that only 5% of villagers used latrines 11 .In the study done by Thapa M showed that in most of the rural village, latrines are non-existent.The people used to discharge excreta near water sources, making water contaminated 12 .

Conclusion:
The sanitary knowledge 90% and hand washing with soap water 65% of the community people was high.The toilet facility was low (36%).So, there should be extensive health education program for the people of the Katahari VDC about the personal hygiene and sanitation.Government and Non-governmental organization should be involved in the construction of toilet in this community with their full participation.