Assessment of the Level of Knowledge and Practices on Hand Hygiene among School going Children at Selected Districts, Tamil Nadu, India

Background: The practice of hand washing is a simple effective way to prevent infection cleaning of the hands can prevent the spread of germs and micro organisms. Hand hygiene is recognized as a leading measure to prevent cross –transmission of microorganism. Infection due to microbes is a evolving problem in worldwide and horizontal transmission of bacterial organisms to cause a high mortality rate increased. Hand washing with soap and water can prevent a significant proportion of childhood diarrhoea and respiratory infections, the two main global causes of child mortality.

Objectives: The objectives were to assess the existing level of knowledge and practice of school going children on hand washing, to find out the correlation between level of knowledge and practice on hand washing among school going children and to find out the association between level of knowledge and practices of school going children on hand washing with their selected demographic variables.

Methods: A quantitative evaluative approach with descriptive research design was adopted. 50 school going children were selected by the purposive sampling technique.

Results: The collected data was tabulated and analyzed. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used. In the level of knowledge majority of the school going children (52%) had inadequate knowledge, 28% of them were had moderately adequate knowledge and only 20% of them had adequate knowledge. The mean knowledge score on hand washing was 10.4 and the standard deviation was 4.31. The mean practice score on hand washing was 21.52 and the standard deviation was 7.4.

Conclusion: The study results shows that most of the school children were having inadequate knowledge and less desirable practices of hand washing. A structured teaching program on hand washing is very important for incorporating the knowledge among school children.