Introduction: Community-led total sanitation is a community approach of inspiring and empowering communities to stop open defecation and to build and use latrines, without offering external subsidies to purchase hardware such as pans and pipes.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices towards community led total sanitation among the residents of Bunga community of Twapia Ndola.
Methodology: A cross-sectional study design was used among females and males between 18 and 60 years of age, using a questionnaire. The data was then entered and analyzed using Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 26.. Multivariate analysis was used in the correlations of knowledge, attitudes, and practices and intestinal worm infestation.
Results: For this study, a total of one hundred and thirty households from Bunga community were recruited upon obtaining informed consent from them and having met the criteria for selection. A total of 130 individuals were interviewed giviing the response rate to be at 100%. This study determined the levels of knowledge of the participants to be 63(48.5%) and 67 (51.5%) for poor and good knowledge levels respectively. Furthermore, it revealed that 107(82.8%) attributed financial challenges as the main difficulty hindering their improved toilet situation and to a lesser extent, 1 (0.8%) no space indoor or outdoor had the lowest frequency. Generally, a good attitude 89 (68.5%) was found among the participants. When asked where their family members usually defecate from when home, 90(69.8%) and 96(73.8) used their own toilet for children and adults respectively. The p value was > 0.01 (p=0.745) between the knowledge levels and attitude, and also >0.01 (p=0.660) between knowledge and practice levels. However, the correlation between attitude and practice levels had a p value that was <0.01 (p=0.008).
Conclusion/Recommendations: The overall knowledge levels in this study were poor. Associated factors that were significant in hindering people from improving their sanitation included financial challenges, no materials available, no laborers available and no support/assistance. Most of the people used their own toilet to defecate for both children and adults belonging to the same household with adults never using open defecation and only some children of a few houses using open defecation sometimes. No correlation was found between knowledge and practice levels. However, a significant correlation was found between attitude and practice of the households. There is need to for more holistic methods of ways to penetrate the community and make sure people are adequately educated about community led total sanitation.
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