Knowledge enrichment would enhance hand hygiene practice in early childhood: An observational study in Hong Kong

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the current hygiene knowledge and handwashing practices among children, as well as to evaluate the changes in knowledge, attitude and behaviour towards personal hygiene after providing a hygiene thematic lecture. A pre- and post-observational study was conducted for case group and reference group. The participants were year-3 students around age 5 to 6 (N=251) from local kindergartens. McNemar test was conducted to analyse the changes in the post-test results within the groups. A test for analysing the proportion of positive change was conducted for cross-group comparison. Significant positive changes have demonstrated in the case group but not in the reference group. The percentage of fulfilling the recommended handwashing standard improved from 4.6% to 14.9% (P<0.001) among case group but dropped from 7.1% to 3.6% in the reference group. Children are capable to complete handwashing procedures as recommended but the proportion was still very low.