Basic Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) practices among school adolescents of rural area, Indore: A comparative study

Background: Young teens are more vulnerable to a variety of infections, particularly teenage girls if they don't take care of their hygiene. The reason of conducting studies in schools is as they spend more than one third of their lifetime in school. School environment, supply of potable water, etc. impact on healthy development.

Material and methods: This is a cross-sectional study carried out in the field of RHTC practice at Indore Medical College from February to April 2019. A structured pro- forma that included questions about basic sanitation, water and hygiene practices, is used to gather data from teenagers studying in public and private schools. 200 students from public schools and 200 private schools in Grades 6 to 10 were selected by Quota Sampling to compare WASH practices among themselves.

Results: The majority of teenagers in private schools have good levels of personal hygiene 58.3% compared to public schools 41.7%. Standards of personal hygiene increased with age. The majority of 95% of teenagers used drinking water sources in the private sector as opposed to adolescents in public schools. In the study, 73% of private schools had separate washrooms for girls and boys, compared with 89.5% of public schools. Nearly all washrooms in private schools were clean, compared with 40% in public schools. Bins were available in 67% of adolescents in private schools, compared with 34% of adolescents in public schools. Handwashing practices were found to be satisfactory among teens at both schools.

Conclusion: Following the launch of the Swatch Bharat Abhiyan, overall WASH practices are enhanced. Practices among teenagers in private schools were found to be satisfactory, but improvements were also observed in public schools. Most of the time, teenagers miss school for lack of core WASH practices.