Which psychological factors change when habitual water treatment practices alter?

Abstract

Aim Household water treatment systems (HWTS) and safe storage systems are an effective measure to ensure safe water supply. The adoption of HWTS requires long-term changes in behavior. During campaigns for health related behavior change, many people appear to have fixed behavioral patterns that are difficult to change. Since behavior change originates in the altering of inner psychological factors, it is necessary to investigate the transformation of these factors. Five categories of psychological factors are identified as responsible for the formation of habitual behavior: risk beliefs, attitudinal beliefs, normative beliefs, ability beliefs, and maintenance beliefs. This study analyzes which factors change when long-term users of HWTS, non-users, or 'tryers' (using HWTS occasionally), transform their behavior type or remain in their current behavior type. Subjects and methods Data were obtained by conducting six panel interviews about the use of solar water disinfection (SODIS) over a period of 14 months, with 694 households, in the slum areas of Harare, Zimbabwe. Results The results reveal that progressing to a higher level of user type (one who increases their use of SODIS), or staying at a high level of use (maintaining their level of use) is associated with the user's ability to avoid being hindered by other habits, to remember the behavior in respective situations, and to notice that other people are also using SODIS. Conclusion Suggested strategies which may foster these factors include the control of distracting stimuli, forming implementation intentions, daily routine planning, applying reminders, and using public commitments.

Contextual and sociopsychological factors in predicting habitual cleaning of water storage containers in rural Benin

“…Perceiving the consequences of contracting diarrhea as severe, on the contrary, predicted lower habitual cleaning. Mosler and Kraemer [] found a similar result in Zimbabwe when they investigated different user types of solar water disinfection (SODIS) over time. When “tryers” (people who used SODIS occasionally) stayed tryers or developed into long‐term users, their perceived severity of diarrhea decreased.…”

Sustained adoption of water, sanitation and hygiene interventions: systematic review

“…We chose this because the factors that influence behaviour practice or technology use may be different during the project period and the post‐project period, and may require different operational, financial or behavioural inputs. Within the WASH literature, most articles focus on initial adoption of WASH behaviours; we identified only two articles presenting frameworks that address sustained adoption . Clearer definitions of sustained adoption may allow for standardised comparisons in WASH behaviour and technology adoption across studies and therefore more rigorous evaluations, and better targeting of limited project resources.…”

A Methodology for Quantifying Effects and Psychological Functioning of Behavior-Change Techniques

“…Such models have been successfully applied to the use of SODIS (e.g., Kraemer & Mosler, 2011;Mosler & Kraemer, 2012). However, our model explains that the data comprising all levels of SODIS use almost perfectly without considering stages of change.…”