Effectiveness of an educational intervention on personal hygiene among school children in slum area of Kolkata, India

Abstract

Background: Personal hygiene is the practice of maintaining cleanliness of the body. Primary school days are the best time to learn healthful habits and practice them, because as the child grows older, these habits become permanent. We intended to find out the existing level of knowledge, attitude and practice of personal hygiene and effectiveness of educational intervention among primary school children in a slum area of Kolkata. Methods: A quasi-experimental, controlled educational interventional study was conducted in two Bengali medium primary schools situated in area under service jurisdiction of Urban Health Centre-Chetla, Kolkata. During pre intervention phase, collection of socio-demographic information and assessment of knowledge, attitude and practice of personal hygiene of the students were done by pre designed pretested questionnaire and checklist. During the 6-month intervention in the study school lecture and demonstration on personal hygiene was done. Then post-testing in both the schools followed. Then personal hygiene education in the control school was imparted once and follow up of both the schools 3 months afterwards was done. Results: There was significant improvement in the knowledge, attitude and practice level in study school as compared to the control school with educational intervention, but with a declining trend in study school during follow up visit. Parental literacy, occupation and per capita monthly family income were important sociodemographic attributes. Conclusions: Sustained health education programme on personal hygiene with greater involvement of parents/ guardians may yield maximum benefit for the students.