Impact of an Intensive Perinatal Handwashing Promotion Intervention on Maternal Handwashing Behavior in the Neonatal Period: Findings from a Randomized Controlled Trial in Rural Bangladesh

Table 1

Comparison of participants in the control and intervention arms at baseline, pregnant women at 28–32 weeks’ gestation, Matlab, Bangladesh, 2010-11.

Characteristic	Control group ()	Intervention group ()
Demographics
Mother’s mean age (SD)	20.3 (2.4)	19.9 (2.3)
Mean number of people in household (SD)	5.7 (2.4)	6.0 (2.9)
Mean number of prenatal visits (SD)	0.7 (0.5)	0.79 (0.4)
Health care worker talked about handwashing with soap (%)	5 (4.0)	8 (6.4)
Reported knowing about clean delivery kit (%)	3 (2.4)	4 (3.2)
Water and sanitation
Main source of drinking water: Tubewell (%)	117 (97.2)	121 (94.4)
Location of main handwashing station (%)
Near surface water	21 (16.9)	27 (21.6)
Near tubewell	83 (66.9)	75 (60)
Other	20 (16.1)	23 (18.6)
Materials present at main handwashing station (%)
Water	122 (98.4)	122 (97.6)
Bar soap	15 (12.1)	15 (12.0)
Powdered soap	6 (4.8)	4 (3.2)
Liquid soap	0 (0)	1 (0.8)
Ash	14 (11.3)	8 (6.4)
Water and soap together	18 (14.5)	20 (16.0)
Wealth and education
Possession of a working television (%)	50 (40.3)	59 (47.2)
Availability of electricity/solar panels (%)	87 (70.1)	87 (70.0)
Tin roof (%)	122 (98.4)	119 (95.2)
Tin walls (%)	115 (92.7)	112 (89.6)
Mean years of education for mother	7.5 (2.3)	7.60 (2.5)
Mean years of education for husband	7.2 (3.3)	8.82 (12.0)