Knowledge, attitude and practice of personal hygiene among students of Abayi Girls Secondary School, Aba, Abia State

Abstract

Background: Personal hygiene deficiency diseases have been found to be a serious public health problem and people often affected are school children. These have been attributed to inadequate knowledge of personal hygiene and its practices.

Aim: The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice of personal hygiene among students of Abayi Girls' Secondary School, Aba.

Methodology: This study is a cross-sectional descriptive study. Self/interviewer administered questionnaires were administered to the participants to elicit data on their socio-demographic characteristics, knowledge of, attitude and practice of personal hygiene. Data was collected at a single point in time.

Results: The result showed that most of the respondents who participated in the study were in the 1015years age bracket. 91.3% have ever heard of personal hygiene and more than half of them (61.2%) said they heard of it from school.

Conclusion: The outcome of this study reveals that majority of the students had a good level of personal hygiene knowledge with a somewhat lower level of personal hygiene practice. The type of house respondents lived in significantly affected their practice of personal hygiene.

Keywords: Knowledge, Attitude, Practice, Personal Hygiene, Aba