The Effect of Education Based on the Health Belief Model on the Promotion of Sanitary Wastewater Disposal Behavior

Disposal of non-sanitary wastewater in the rural area leads to the pollution of surface water, groundwater, and soil. It also creates unpleasant landscapes and a suitable environment for the growth and propagation of various types of insects and rodents. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of education based on the Health Belief Model (HBM) on the promotion of sanitary wastewater disposal behaviors of rural residents.

This interventional study was conducted on 72 heads of rural households in Aq-Qala, Iran. Two similar villages in the area were selected and assigned to experimental and control group through simple random allocation. Then, 36 heads of the households were selected from each village. Data were collected before and after the intervention through a reliable and valid HBM questionnaire. Paired samples t-test, Wilcoxon, independent samples t-test and Mann-Whitney test were employed to analyze the data by SPSS version 17.

Before the intervention, there wasn’t significant difference between two groups in terms of knowledge, HBM constructs, behavior and demographic characteristics (P>0.05). After the intervention, the mean score of knowledge, perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, and self-efficacy increased significantly and the mean score of perceived barriers decreased significantly in the experimental group (P<0.05). However, no significant difference was found in the mean score of behavior (P>0.05).

The educational intervention was effective in promoting knowledge and HBM constructs, but it was not effective in the domain of behavior. As far as digging absorptive well is costly, so in addition to increasing the number of training sessions, inter-sectoral cooperation between village councils is recommended.