Knowledge, attitude and practice of personal hygiene and its predictors: A school-based study among adolescent girls in an urban slum

Abstract

Background: Personal hygiene plays a pivotal role in maintaining proper health. Adolescent girls being the future mothers are the subjects to be considered for improvement of personal hygiene and dietary habits. Objectives: The study was conducted to assess the status of knowledge, attitude, practice (KAP) of personal hygiene, dietary habits and to find out its predictors among school going adolescent girls in a slum area of Kolkata. Materials and Methods: A school-based cross-sectional study was conducted in a Government Secondary Girls’ school situated in a slum area of Kolkata. A total of 327 adolescent girls of Class V-VIII were included by complete enumeration method and interviewed with a predesigned, pretested questionnaire along with a checklist to assess KAP of personal hygiene and dietary habits after taking informed consent from their guardians. Results: The mean age of the participants was 12.17 ± 1.255 years. Regarding the knowledge of personal hygiene and dietary habits, majority or near majority had correct knowledge of proper care of hair (94.8%), covering of mouth during coughing or sneezing (43.43%), care of nails (46.79%), hand washing (66.36%), necessity of daily bathing (64.53%), and wearing clean clothes (62.39%). Most of them had proper attitude to care of hair (96.9%), covering of mouth during coughing or sneezing (59.3%), cleansing of mouth after feeding (47.4%), hand washing (90.8%), necessity of daily bathing (62.7%), and daily changing of undergarments (60.9%). However, these knowledge and attitude were not reflected in their practices. Multivariate analyses revealed religion, socioeconomic status, type of family and parental education were significant predictors of status of personal hygiene. Conclusion: Continuous health education and behavioral change communication programs are needed to lift up the proper practices of basic personal hygiene of adolescent girls to bring them up to a healthy society.