Psychosocial factors affecting faecal sludge desludging (Indonesia)

Desludging operators have significant role in achieving safe sanitation, especially for cities that rely on onsite sanitation system, such as Bekasi City in Indonesia. Safe desludging is not only about conducting regular desludging, but also ensuring that the desludging operation is comply with safe sanitation principles. In reality safe desludging has not usually been implemented properly. For instance, desludging operations are often not in accordance with the operational procedures, regularly not applying Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), desludging workers are allowed to enter into the septic tanks, or septage is not disposed on designated location. To change these unsafe practices, one needs to understand the influence of the behavior. To ascertain the underlying causes of unsafe desludging practices, it is considered necessary to identify the individual as well as social and environmental factors that can affect the desludging practice. A mixed- method study was conducted to investigate the factors using Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF) as theoretical framework. Questionnaire and also semi-structured interview with desludging workers and the owners/managers of desludging service providers were conducted to gain understanding regarding the underlying causes of the practice and factors that influence them. To determine appropriate recommendation to improve desludging practice compliance in Bekasi city, the intervention techniques in behavior change were used as a base and guide in generating recommendation. Using this method, every proposed recommendation was targeted to the determinants of desludging practice compliance