Knowledge, Attitude, and Practice (KAP) regarding Personal Hygiene among Primary School going Children in Sadar Upazilla, Noakhali District, Bangladesh

Abstract

Personal hygiene which should be started from childhood and having proper knowledge and practice duringthis time period will help to attenuate the infectious disease, thus increase the productivity of an individualin his or her life cycle. Investigating the knowledge, attitude and practice regarding personal hygiene amongprimary school going children was the aim of this study. A school based cross sectional study involving408 children by probability proportionate was carried out in eight government and private primary schoolsat Sadar Upazilla, Noakhali District. The mean age of the respondents were 9.77±1.62 years with equalnumbers of boys and girls. Overall 78.4% (N=320) respondents had good knowledge regarding hygieneand the percentage was higher among girls (79.4%) compared to boys and there have been also significantcorrelation among knowledge, attitude and practice about personal hygiene (P= 0.000). The study alsorevealed that respondents having adequate knowledge of proper hygiene were more likely to have cleanclothes and clean teeth (AOR 2.37, CI 1.2-4.6 and AOR 2.51, CI 1.4-4.5 respectively). Thus continuoushealth education and behavioral change program are essential and should be conducted frequently to improveoverall hygiene situation.