Assessment of Hand Washing Knowledge and Practice among Primary School Children in Noakhali District, Bangladesh

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to identify the prevalence of hand washing knowledge and practice among primary school children in the Noakhali District, Bangladesh. It is a Cross-sectional study in nature. This study was a primary analysis of 400 children who were in primary school. We carried out frequency tabulation, binary and multivariate logistic regression analyses to achieve the study objective. In the study, 89% of students had good knowledge & 71.6% of students had good practice regarding hand washing. The odds of having good knowledge about hand washing were high among the students who were in grade 5 [AOR=2.85; CI 1.418-5.741] and had received hand washing training [AOR=2.58; CI 1.125-5.932]. The odds of having good practice about hand washing were greater among the students who were in grade 5 [AOR=1.8: CI=1.040-3.115], whose fathers were job holder [AOR=3.20; CI 1.267-8.093], whose mothers completed SSC [AOR=3.80; CI 1.786-8.102], HSC & above [AOR=3.99; CI 1.132-14.085] and received hand washing training [AOR=3.93; CI 1.748-8.872).Though the knowledge about hand washing is quite good, a community-based intervention program needs to be carried out to educate the children about the hand washing practice.