A Cross-Sectional Study on Hand Washing Practices among Mothers in An Urban Slum Area. -

Introduction: An estimated 88 percent of diarrheal deaths worldwide are attributable to unsafe water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene. Clean water and hand washing are viewed as the most cost effective intervention for preventing diarrheal diseases. Various studies have highlighted that simple act of hand washing and basic hygiene behavior could prevent diarrhea, acute respiratory infections and skin infections. Despite much evidence supporting the effectiveness of personal hygiene behavior, they are yet to be practiced widely. It is observed that young children and their mother in developing countries fail to wash their hand adequately after fecal contact. Materials and methods: The present cross-sectional study was carried out in the one of the urban slum area of the field practice area of dept of Community Medicine. Mothers of under five children were informed about utility of the survey and verbal consent was obtained in each instance. Questionnaire was prepared by adopting the theme of core questionnaire on sanitation by WHO. Components of sanitation like food handling and hand washing were covered in this questionnaire. Results: A total of 242 mothers participated in the study. 71.49% mothers stated that hand washing was important in prevention of some or the other communicable diseases. However, 73.97% mothers felt that washing hands with only water was sufficient. Hand washing before preparing food is being practiced by 76.86% of mothers. Still 23.14 % reports that they are not practicing hand washing. Of all mother interviewed, 57.44% wash hands before serving food. Conclusion: Hand washing is an important practice to reduce the burden of childhood morbidity and mortality and various communicable diseases like diarrhoea, ARI etc. However, both knowledge and practice of proper hand washing after critical moments still remains low among mothers.