Environmental Health Unit, School of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Wachemo University, Hosaena, Ethiopia.
Infection Prevention and Patient Safety Unit, Dilla University Hospital, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Dilla University, Dilla, Ethiopia.
PLoS One. 2021 Jan 11;16(1):e0245289. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0245289. eCollection 2021.
Even though evidence shows that access to and use of improved latrines is related to healthful families and the public, obstacles to the adoption and use of improved latrine facilities remain. Globally, not many inquiries appear to have been carried out to satisfactorily inform us regarding the multi-level barriers influencing the adoption and utilization of improved latrines facilities. Related studies in Ethiopia are even fewer.
Two qualitative data gathering methods, viz., key informant interviews and focus group discussions, were employed to collect data for this study. A total of fifteen focus group discussions were conducted with members of the community in the rural Wonago district of Ethiopia. Similarly, ten key informant interviews were conducted with water, sanitation, and hygiene officers, and health extension workers responsible for coordinating sanitation and hygiene activities. Open code software 4.03 was used for thematic analysis.
Barriers to adoption and use of improved latrine facilities were categorized into Contextual factors (e.g. Gender, educational status, personal preference for using the field, limited space, population density, the status of land ownership), Psychosocial factors (Culture, beliefs, attitudes, and perceptions of minimal health threat from children's feces), and Technological factors (inconveniences in acquiring materials and cost of constructing a latrine).
There are a series of multi-leveled barriers to the sustained adoption and use of latrines. Providing funding opportunities for the underprivileged and offering training on the engineering skills of latrine construction at the community level based on the contextual soil circumstances could expand the latrine coverage and use. Similarly, taking into account the variability in motivations for adopting and using latrines among our study in Ethiopia and other studies, we implore public health experts to recognize behaviors and norms in their target communities in advance of implementing sanitation interventions.
尽管有证据表明，获得和使用改良厕所与健康的家庭和公众有关，但采用和使用改良厕所设施仍然存在障碍。在全球范围内，似乎没有进行太多的调查来充分告知我们影响采用和利用改良厕所设施的多层次障碍。在埃塞俄比亚，相关研究甚至更少。
本研究采用了两种定性数据收集方法，即关键知情人访谈和焦点小组讨论，来收集数据。在埃塞俄比亚农村沃纳戈区，共对社区成员进行了 15 次焦点小组讨论，对负责协调卫生和卫生活动的水、卫生和环境卫生官员和卫生推广人员进行了 10 次关键知情人访谈。使用开放式编码软件 4.03 进行主题分析。
采用和使用改良厕所设施的障碍分为以下几类：背景因素（如性别、教育程度、个人对使用场地的偏好、空间有限、人口密度、土地所有权状况）、社会心理因素（文化、信仰、态度和对儿童粪便带来的健康威胁的认知）和技术因素（获取材料的不便和建造厕所的成本）。
持续采用和使用厕所存在一系列多层次的障碍。为弱势群体提供资金机会，并根据社区的具体土壤情况，在社区层面提供有关厕所建设工程技能的培训，可以扩大厕所的覆盖范围和使用。同样，考虑到埃塞俄比亚和其他研究中采用和使用厕所的动机存在差异，我们恳请公共卫生专家在实施卫生干预措施之前，预先了解目标社区的行为和规范。
