By Blathnaid McQuaide

More than a quarter of residents in Northern Ireland don’t own a bath, a survey commissioned by the Department for Infrastructure suggests.

The research is based on The Northern Ireland Continuous Household Survey 2024/2025 of more than 4, 500 people.

It indicates that 25% of people in Northern Ireland don’t own a bath. Figures also confirmed that, while 40% owned a bath,they never use it.

The survey wanted to examine changing bathing habits across Northern Ireland.

Joanne Wilson, a nurse in Altnagelvin Hospital said there were mental health benefits to having a bath.

“The health benefits of having a bath are number one mentally there’s nothing like a long soak in the bath just to relax, chill out and zone out.

“I also think that adding Epsom salts to a bath is very beneficial to your muscles if you have aches and pains,” she said.

In a new question introduced this year, The Continuous Household Survey asked participants to identify how often they used the bath; options included weekly, fortnightly and monthly.

Participants were also asked to identify how many times on average they showered.  It identified that nearly half of the respondents (48%) showered seven times a week.

Mrs Wilson said that baths were not practical for elderly individuals as they posed health and safety dangers.

“I’m not really surprised that 25% of people don’t have a bath because I would say when people get older in particular they would find a bath too difficult to use.

“They would probably have the most benefits from it to be honest. But getting in and out of it would just be too much,” she said.

The Altnagelvin nurse highlighted space limitations and cost as factors that prevented baths being installed in households:

“Maybe because of space restraints in houses, showers are just easier and more economical for a lot of people. But personally, I couldn’t be without one.”

Specialist cardiology nurse Pamela Hegarty said she only hadtime for one bath a week. She believed bathing habits were shaped by schedule and emotional wellbeing.

 “As a health professional I feel because of my busy lifestyle showering works better for me.

“It’s quicker and faster depending on the time I have available. I only ever take a bath when I’m feeling more stressed out than usual. I don’t ever take one any other time,”she said.