A Study of the knowledge, attitudes, and practices on cremation as an environmental measure. A case of Manhenga peri-urban town in Bindura · Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Author

Mandizha, Takunda

Title

A Study of the knowledge, attitudes, and practices on cremation as an environmental measure. A case of Manhenga peri-urban town in Bindura

Abstract

Following the rapid growth of urbanization, people are migrating from rural to urban areas in pursuit of better opportunities, even though peri-urban areas were intended to accommodate a much smaller population. Due to the high death rates the planned cemeteries are becoming overcrowded. People have begun to utilize the available land to bury their loved ones, which has reduced the total amount of land available for other economic activities that bring income to people. To curb this growing problem local people must adopt cremation hence their knowledge and attitudes towards cremation as a sustainable alternative for the traditional burial practice must align. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out and data was collected using research questionnaires. 30 research questionnaires were administered amongst the participants. The questionnaire consisted of four sections namely, socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge, attitude, and practices (KAP) section. Data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2013 and SPSS version 20. A total of 30 respondents participated in the study with 30% being male, while 70% were female. 53, 4% of the participants were accounted for by the 26-34 & over 50 age groups. The participant’s knowledge score was quite good at 80%. The attitude score was quite good at 73%. However the practices score was very low at 24% indicating a low level of practicing cremation. The study concludes that among the participants, knowledge on cremation was quite good, attitudes negative and practice extremely low guided by the strong Christian beliefs and Shona culture. Thus even people have vast knowledge know about cremation as long as their attitude is negative and there is no a radical shift in perceptions about the dead loved ones cremation cannot be adopted in the community. For cremation to be widely adopted as a sustainable burial method in Nyanhehwe village, village residents must participate in more environmental awareness campaigns, the government should integrate cremation into the education curriculum from primary level to tertiary level education and cremation awareness campaigns should be done in communities, government should build more crematoriums, publish its costs of services and disseminate cremation benefits to the public from local authorities.

Date

June 2025

Publisher

BUSE

Keywords

Attitudes

Cremation

Traditional burial practices

Supervisor

Mr. Nyamugure