EFFECT OF A HEALTH EDUCATION INTERVENTION PROGRAMME ON PRACTICE OF PERSONAL HYGIENE AMONG BASIC SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN ABUJA NIGERIA
Keywords:
Health education intervention, personal hygiene practice, basic secondary school studentsAbstract
The study was to Poor personal hygiene among school-aged children remains a public health concern because it contributes to the spread of communicable diseases and negatively affects students' health and academic performance. This study assessed the effect of a health education intervention programme on personal hygiene practices among basic secondary school students in Abuja, Nigeria. A quasi-experimental pre-test and post-test control group design was adopted for the study. The population comprised 133,055 basic secondary school students in Abuja, Nigeria. A sample of 100 students was selected using a multistage sampling procedure involving purposive and simple random sampling techniques. Fifty students were assigned to the experimental group, while fifty students constituted the control group. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire administered before and after the intervention. Descriptive statistics, including frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations, were used to analyse the data, while paired-sample t-test and independent-sample t-test were used to test the hypotheses at the 0.05 level of significance. The findings revealed a significant improvement in personal hygiene practices among students in the experimental group following the health education intervention (t = 60.56, p = 0.001). The study also found a significant difference in post-intervention personal hygiene practice scores between the experimental and control groups (t = 5.631, p = 0.003), indicating that students who received the intervention demonstrated better hygiene practices than those who did not. The study concluded that the health education intervention programme was effective in improving personal hygiene practices among basic secondary school students in Abuja, Nigeria. Based on the findings, it was recommended that health educators should utilize school health clubs, posters, and other school-based communication channels to promote good hygiene practices. In addition, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and other stakeholders should provide schools with adequate hygiene facilities and materials, including clean water, soap, handwashing stations, and sanitation equipment, to support and sustain positive hygiene behaviours among students.
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