Assessment of household water use behaviour and hygiene practices in Ijumu Local Government Area, Kogi State, Nigeria

Abstract

Water and hygiene practices play a prominent role in the prevention of water related diseases. This study assesses household water use behaviour and hygiene practices in Ijumu Local Government Area, Kogi State. Fifteen households were randomly selected from each of the 26 villages in the study area for the administration of 390 copies of questionnaire. The study employed the use of Pearson Correlation analysis and descriptive statistics to interpret the data. The study reveals that 93.3% of the respondents practiced hand washing, out of which (40%) used water only, (30.5%) used water and soap, and (22.8%) used water and other cleaning agents. Furthermore, the study revealed a positive relationship between water source and incidence of disease with 0.55 r =+ suggesting that the more improved the water source, the better the people’s health condition. The study further reveals that 74% and 54.9% of the respondents respectively have formal education and are aware of the importance of water treatment and thus adopt different treatment mechanisms. In addition, the result of the correlation value of (r= -0.96, -0.76 and -0.61) show a strong but negative relationship between time spent for water collection and the different hand washing variables at critical times, indicating that hand washing practices increases with a decrease in time spent for water collection. The study concludes that hygiene practices is dependent on accessibility to water supply. The study calls for policy responses towards investigation of water quality and sensitization and monitoring programmes in order to enforce participation in sanitation programmes.