Evaluating knowledge, awareness and associated water usage towards hand hygiene practices influenced by the current COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh

Mst Farzana Rahman Zuthi; Md Arif Hossen; Sudip Kumar Pal; Maruful Hasan Mazumder; S M Farzin Hasan; Md Muzamamel Hoque

doi:10.1016/j.gsd.2022.100848

Evaluating knowledge, awareness and associated water usage towards hand hygiene practices influenced by the current COVID-19 pandemic in Bangladesh

Groundw Sustain Dev. 2022 Nov:19:100848. doi: 10.1016/j.gsd.2022.100848. Epub 2022 Sep 22.

Authors

Mst Farzana Rahman Zuthi^{1

2}, Md Arif Hossen¹, Sudip Kumar Pal², Maruful Hasan Mazumder³, S M Farzin Hasan², Md Muzamamel Hoque^{2

4}

Affiliations

¹ Center for Environmental Science & Engineering Research (CESER), Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), Chattogram, 4349, Bangladesh.
² Department of Civil Engineering, Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), Chattogram, 4349, Bangladesh.
³ Department of Disaster Engineering and Management, Chittagong University of Engineering and Technology (CUET), Chattogram, 4349, Bangladesh.
⁴ Southern University Bangladesh, Chattogram, 4000, Bangladesh.

Abstract

Hand hygiene is considered as one of the most effective ways for preventing transmissible diseases, especially for preventing virus-borne diseases. The study has been conducted to evaluate changes in knowledge, awareness and practices of hand hygiene due to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Bangladesh. The potential factors influencing human behaviours for maintaining hand hygiene have also been explored. Moreover, a probable increase in daily water demand associated with the changed situation has been assessed. An online survey was performed among a total of 367 Bangladeshi residents about their practices of hand hygiene during pre-corona, corona, and of their perceived future practices at post-corona period. It has been observed that a significant percentage (62.1%) of the respondents have received basic hygiene education at any level of their academic education. Nevertheless, their hygiene practices were very poor before the COVID-19 pandemic. The outbreak of the COVID-19 has reinforced their previous knowledge and greatly influenced their behavioural changes towards practicing hand hygiene as per World Health Organization guidelines for preventing the virus outbreak. The changes, however, have created increased water demand. The estimated water usage is found to be 2.68 times (9.15 L/c/d) and 2.52 times (8.59 L/c/d) higher in the corona and post-corona period respectively than that of the pre-corona situation (3.41 L/c/d). The principal component analysis (PCA) elucidated that an individual's practice of hand hygiene was associated with income, level of academic and hygiene education, and the COVID-19 outbreak itself. Moreover, the influence of hygiene education and COVID-19 outbreak affecting the duration of handwashing are found highly significant (p-value < 0.001) from the regression analysis. Raising awareness towards behavioural change of an individual about water usage, improvement of academic curriculum regarding hand hygiene and provision of water pricing are recommended to attain sustainable development goals of the country.

Keywords: COVID-19; Hand hygiene; Hygiene education; Principal component analysis; Water management.