European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Personal hygiene among children is considered as the best tool to improve community strategies and intervention practices to tackle the many communicable and infectious diseases. A cross-sectional descriptive study was carried out. The participants were school children who are 10-14-year olds. A questionnaire was used to collect information about demographic characteristics, and then the children were interviewed and inspected regarding their general hygiene, including the state of their uniform or clothes, bathing, oral care, hand washing before and after eating, hand washing after use of toilet, covering one’s mouth when sneezing and coughing, appropriate disposal of solid tissue and unkempt hair or nails. The prevalence of cleanliness and neatness among school children was 76.7%. Furthermore, these improved with age. Poor oral hygiene (47.6%) and not washing hands after eating (47.1%) followed by unkempt hair (44.0%) were the main types of poor personal hygiene. Health promotion programmes and health education lectures should be implemented for children and their families. School nurses, school staff and parents also have an important role in teaching the children how to practice good personal hygiene.