+443308187254Desalew Tilahun Beyene, Abdisa Eba Tucho, Tolasa Takele Moga
Introduction: Lack of sanitation facilities is a serious health risk and obliges people to practice open defecation, thereby increasing the risk of disease transmission. Despite the fact that household access is important, community sanitation coverage is even more important to improve health around the world. The best use of a well-maintained latrines can reduce the risk of diarrhea to almost the same extent as improved water supplies. Objective: The study was designed to assess the effect of latrine utilization on diarrhea diseases in Abukako Kebele, Jimma Zone, South West, and Ethiopia. Method: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted in all households that had latrine facilities in Abukako Kebele. Lottery method was used to get first house hold from the Kebele and systematic random sampling was used to select the households with latrine facilities from Kebele. Result: About 87.8% households used pit latrine in this study. There were 408 under five children in 204 households. The prevalence of under 5 diarrhea was 54 (13.2% and the majority occur 6-11 month 38.9%). Conclusion and Recommendation: Diarrheal diseases highly affect the family members who used the latrine rarely. This might be due to stay out of work, in some of open field is convenient. Among 254 households 84 (33.1%) respondents had diarrhea in past 6 months. Majority of 121 (54.2%) of the respondents explained that they were rarely using latrine. About 124 (48.8%) households replied that their main source of water was unprotected well. It is recommended that the concerned bodies should give attention to improve latrine utilization providing community awareness through mass-media, health education and role modeling.
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