Assessment on Situation of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Home Based Care Clients of Plwha in Addis Ababa
Creators: name: Siyoum, Manaye
Publisher: name: National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia
Year: 2009

description: Background: - Although HIV/AIDS is not water and sanitation related disease, the issues are closely linked. Many of the opportunistic infections like diarrhea that cause high morbidity and mortality in people living with HIV/AIDS are transmitted through contaminated water and unsanitary living conditions. Therefore, a reliable water supply and good sanitation facilities are indispensable to assist in the task of bathing, washing, cleaning &amp; disinfecting the home environment, providing water for taking drug, using latrine to avoid contamination. Access to Water and sanitation services can help home based care clients to live longer in good health, facilitate care for ill patients, improve the quality of life and increase their dignity. However, this is poorly recognized by either organizations working on HIV/AIDS or water and sanitation sector. Objective: - the objective of this study is to assess the situation of water, sanitation and hygiene in home-based care clients in Addis Ababa city. Methods: - A cross-sectional study using simple random sampling technique was conducted in Addis Ababa from March 31 to April 14/2009. A total of 422 home based care clients proportionally allocated to each sub city were interviewed and the response rate was over 99%. Data on socio-demographic characteristics of home based care client, water, sanitation and hygiene practices were collected through face to face interview and observation using checklists. Participation in this study was voluntary and based on clients' ability to give informed consent. Data was analyzed using SPSS 11.0 for windows statistical package. Result: - The result of this study showed that home based care clients had access to improved water sources (96.4%) with reasonable time taken to fetch. The availability of improved sanitation, bathing facilities and hand washing facility near latrine were 62.5%, 6.9% and 4.3% respectively. The per capita water consumption (10l/c/d) and home based water treatment practices (11.4%) of clients were very low. There was also gap between knowledge of hand washing during critical times with detergents (70.5%) and practice X (60.5%). Similarly, clients had poor practice of water dipping (86.9%), keeping cleanliness of latrines (69.6%), proper efflu XI ent (50%) and child feces disposal (67.9%). While they had good practice of proper covering of water vessels (83.8%) and body bathing at least once a week (90.4%). Homebased care clients were less exposed to hygiene education and hygiene promoting teaching materials. The two week period prevalence of diarrhea was 15.5%. However, only 80% related to water and sanitation which characterized by lack of blood in the stool. The results of bivariate analysis showed that there was no statistically significant association between house owner ship, sex of head of households and income in availability of improved water sources, sanitation and hand washing facilities near a latrine. However, the odds of having improved sanitation in households whose monthly income was &gt;300 were about four times higher than the odds in households whose monthly income was &lt;300 birr. Educational status of clients was found to be significant predictor of daily per capita water consumption. Education had also relation with availability of improved water sources and improved sanitation but the associations were not statistically significant at P&lt;0.05. Conclusion and recommendations- From the study it can be concluded that the water, sanitation and hygiene needs of home based care clients was not full filled. Therefore their need should be addressed by including safe water, sanitation and hygiene as essential components of basic preventive care packages of home based care clients at policy, service provision and community levels. Key words: HIV/AIDS, Home-based care, water, sanitation, Hygiene