Hand washing and occurrence of diarrhoea and acute respiratory tract infection.

ABSTRACT

This cross-sectional study done in 2014 explored the hand-washing practice and its relation with the occurrence of acute diarrhoea and acute respiratory tract infection (ARI) among grades 9 and 10 students from No.1 Basic Education High School, North Okkalapa Township, Yangon Region. Altogether 380 students were selected inclusive of 190 students from ninth grade and the same number of students from tenth grade by using multistage sampling procedure. Anonymous self-administered questionnaires were used in data collection. Results indicated that only 19.7% (95% CI = 15.9%, 24.1%) of students reported proper handwashing practices. The occurrence of acute diarrhoea and ARI among students within last three months were reported as 40.8% (95% CI = 35.9%, 45.8%) and 98.2% (95% CI = 96.2%, 99.2%), respectively. There were statistically significant associations between age (p = 0.002), gender (p =0.002), grade (p = 0.001), socio-economic status (p = 0.05) and practice of hand-washing. Moreover,proper hand-washing practice significantly influenced the occurrence of acute diarrhoea (p =0.001) and occurrence of ARI (p = 0.004) among students. Therefore, the enabling environment for hand-washing should be created for children at school as well as in their home settings. This may lead the children to adopt and sustain proper hand washing-practice in regular manner.