Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of Community regarding Solid Waste Management (SWM)

The study assessed the community's knowledge, attitude, and practices concerning solid waste management. A descriptive, cross-sectional, and correlational study design was carried out to randomly select (330) heads of household citizens from Nineveh governorate – Iraq from the 2nd of July to the 29th of December 2022. The instrument used in the study was developed after reviewing many related pieces of literature, it is composed of three domains "Knowledge= 16 items Attitude= 29 nines, and Practices= 9 items". The instrument was exposed to five experts in the community health nursing field to assess its validity while it was applied to ten participants to measure its reliability "r= 0.79". The interview method depended on collecting data from the participants. High percentages of participants possessed low levels of knowledge (40%), negative attitudes (45.8%), and poor practices (49.7%) regarding MSW, and there were significantly positive linear relationships among all aspects of MSW. The community awareness (as knowledge, attitude, and practices) concerning SWM is not satisfied. Educating the community and increasing its awareness toward solid waste management by using all audio-visual means in a simplified manner that is suitable for all socio-economic groups and concentrates more and profoundly on changing society's attitudes towards solid waste management.