Investigating the Reason of Tendency to Use Point-of-Entry and Point-of-Use Household Water Filters in Sari

Abstract

Background: Due to the pollution of drinking water resources and increasing consumer concerns and awareness about unhealthy drinking water, the urgent need for communities to have access to and produce safe water is felt more than ever, so in recent years the use of Point-of-entry (POE) and point-of-use (POU) filters (known as Household water treatment devices in Iran) in urban and rural communities of Iran, it has become very popular. In this regard, the purpose of this study was to investigate the causes of households in Sari, Mazandaran Province to use POU/POE treatment devices. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted in the fall of 2020 and using an electronic questionnaire to investigate the causes of the tendency of people in Sari to use POU/POE treatment devices. The number of participants in the study was 117 households that were selected according to the simple random sampling method. Results: The results of the present study showed that 73.5% of the surveyed households used the municipal tap water for drinking and 23.1% of the households applied the POU/POE treatment devices. The most common reason for dissatisfaction with urban water was related to the formation of sediments inside the pipe, kettle and water heaters. Conclusion: This study revealed that 23.1% of respondents used POU/POE water treatment devices because of low quality of municipal drinking water. About 17.9% of respondents are distrustful of municipal water system, which was mostly due to the high salt content and scaling of municipal drinking water in Sari.