Knowledge, attitudes, and practices on hand hygiene among primary school pupils in Yumbe Town Council, Yumbe District

Abstract

Poor hand hygiene makes hands a major pathway through which fecal-oral diseases are transmitted among children [1]. Conferring to Global Public-Private Partnership for Hand washing (GPPHW), 80% of the world’s communicable diseases are transmitted by a mere touch of unhygienic hands In Uganda, diarrhea remains among the five leading causes of under-five mortality, accounting for 8% of the 85,000 under five children mortality and a national prevalence of 20% among children under 5 years [33]. Despite the improvement in the hand washing coverage during Covid period up to 70 percent. there has be a drastic reduction on hand hygiene as reported in the annual DHO report for FY 2021/2022 which puts the latrines coverage at 77.3 percent and hand hygiene at 17 percent in Yumbe District [71]. The aim was to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices on hand hygiene among pupils in primary schools in Yumbe Town Council, Yumbe District. There were more males 167 (52.2%) and female’s 153 (47.8%) pupils belonging to age group of 11-17 years. A great proportion of pupils 314 (98.74%) were in school and majority 256 (80.50%) had their parents working. Most of the pupils were Christians 230 (72.78%) and the rest 86 (27.22%) were Muslims. A high proportion of the pupils (98.1%) knew that faeces contain germs and most of them 306(95.6%) use soap and water to wash their hands as pupils 301 (94.1%) knew that hand washing prevents diarrheal diseases. Most of the pupils had positive attitude 244 (76.1%) towards hand washing with 239 (75.15%) believing that dirty hands contaminate food and drinking water, while 264 (82.5%) pupils agreed that hand washing prevents cross-contamination of germs. To increase on the level of knowledge on hand washing, Radio (76.6%) was the most mentioned media source used by children to enhance their knowledge on hand washing. This was also revealed in a study conducted in Ethiopia where children used radio to get knowledge on hand washing[78]. This can be due to the urban location of the schools and Yumbe town council being crippled with power outage. Majority of the pupils 298 (93.10%) agreed that hand lavation was important and more than half 303 (94.70%) agreed that washing hands with soap before eating was important. Notably of the pupils sampled 315 (98.4%) agreed that it was important to teach children hand washing practice. A finding of the level of knowledge, attitude and practices on hand washing among pupil led to the assumption that pupil in the study area have adequate knowledge about hand washing.