Revista de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Educação em Saúde

Sanitation Practices Among University of Benin Undergraduate Students, Nigeria

Abstract

EO Igudia, JA Agbonifoh and SN Omobude-Idiado

The main purpose of this study was to identify sanitation practices among undergraduate students in the halls of residents in University of Benin. In order to achieve this objective four research questions were raised. The descriptive research design was used for the study and the population of the study consists of all the undergraduate students residing in the halls of residents in Ugbowo campus at University of Benin. The sample size for the study was 400 students and was selected through the multistage sampling procedure. A structured questionnaire designed by the researchers titled personal attributes influencing sanitation practices among undergraduate students was used for the study. The instrument was content validated by three experts and when subjected to reliability testing, a reliability coefficient of 0.72 was obtained. The questionnaires were administered to the students in their various halls of residence. The completed ones were retrieved immediately, coded and annalysed using frequency counts and simple percentages. The results of the study among others revealed that:

Sanitation practices among undergraduate students in the University of Benin are low, age and gender influence sanitation practices. And also, inadequate water supply, poor toilet facilities, insufficient toilet, bathroom and waste disposal facilities and poor drainage system are the major causes of poor sanitation in the hostel environment. It was recommended that there is need to educate the students on cleanliness during their orientation exercise and that keeping the environment clean on campus should be a joint responsibility of the school authority and students.