Assessing The Community Led Total Sanitation Approach In Achieving Open Defecation Free Status Among Residents Of Katikamu Sub County Luweero District

ABSTRACT

Background: Open defecation can lead to public health problems most especially in areas where people defecate openly in bushes, gardens, rivers and other water bodies. Nonetheless, even with the availability of toilets, people still need to be convinced to desist from open defecation and use toilets. Therefore, the need for behavior change is critical in addition to the provision of toilets; this has been attempted through the use of programs like the Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS).

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the contribution of the community led total sanitation approach in achieving open defecation free status among residents of Katikamu Sub County - Luwero district

Methods: This was a mixed methods cross sectional study. Both qualitative and quantitative data was collected for this study. Simple random sampling was used to sample out seven of the nine present parishes. In each of the sampled parishes cluster sampling was used to map out the parishes; in this procedure the parishes were clustered into rural parishes and urban parishes. Systematic sampling was used to select households with the eligible respondent who was a household head. Structured interviews were conducted to collect quantitative data from the respondents. Focus group discussions were conducted in this study in order to triangulate it (have more than one method and therefore type of data to rely on) in order to achieve higher reliability of the results. The quantified data was then transferred to Statistical Package of Social sciences (SPSS) computer package for data analysis. Qualitative data was analyzed using content analysis

Results: When asked whether the household of or any of his house hold members with the exemption of infants had eased themselves in a place other than a latrine or toilet, more than three quarters of them denied this occurrence 327(85.2%). More than half of the respondents 245(63%) reported that a member of the CLTS program team had come around their area to check on the condition of latrines before the CLTS sessions started. Majority of the respondents noted that their household members were involved in the CLTS programme (72.1%), that the CLTS facilitation had helped them in realizing the importance of having a latrine 334 (87%). The importance of CLTS in having an ODF household was shown by the CLTS facilitators to the respondents according to 325 (84.6%) of them and lastly, it was also reported that the local authorities in Katikamu had been supportive all through the CLTS process (88.3%).