Awareness Levels of Housewives on the Precautions on The Usage and Storage of Pesticides - Province Dir'iya Saudi Arabia

This study aims primarily to explore the degree of awareness of housewives to follow the preventive measures when using and storing of pesticides, the most important sources of information they use; their awareness levels related to the application and storage of pesticides. The article provides information on the preventive measures adopted by the housewives respondents when they apply pesticides in the house. This study was conducted on 95 housewives residing in the province of Dir'iya. Primary data has been collected by using the questionnaire through conducting the personal interviews. The data were subjected to statistical analyses and the results of the study are presented in the form of: percentages, arithmetic means, standard deviation, and analysis of variance (Scheffe test).
The most important findings of the study revealed that as high as 52.6% of respondents did not protect themselves and used their hands to mix the pesticides, 45.3% respondents used appropriate tools for mixing the pesticides.  Some 44.2% did realize the need to have shower with soap and water after the spraying process. As little as 20% of respondents, applied the needed and correct quantity of spray after making the calculation. With regard to storage of the pesticides, some 48.8% of house-wives store pesticides in the kitchen with the other cleaning materials. As low as 20% respondents store pesticides in the storage room, while only 7.4% store according to the instructions indicated on labels of the containers and follow the warning signs.
Regarding the information sources used by the respondents, some 42.1% of instructions presented on the exterminator card happened to be the primary source of their information and 23.2% just the pesticides on the basis of their personal experiences. While 18.9% reported that get information on the use of pesticides from the flyers, radio programs, newspapers and magazines. According to the results of the statistical analysis (Scheffe test) significant differences on the usage of pesticides among the housewives were observed and they could be attributed to the factors like: experience and adoption of preventive measures when applying the pesticide in the house.