Abstract:

Background: Hand washing is one of the core interventions to prevent diarrhea and pneumonia among children and is the single and only cost- effective intervention.

Objective: The main objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of handwashing health education session on raising school children’s knowledge and skills of proper handwashing technique.

Methods: The study design will be a quasi-experimental pre test- post test single group design. A sample of 108 school children studying in primary grade 4, and 5 at two Public schools (One urban: Gacurabwenge primary school and one rural school: Kibali primary school) in Northern Province participated in the study after a stratified systematic sampling. The study was done in October 2016 and data were analyzed in SPSS version 16.0 using paired t-test for normally distributed data and Wilcoxon rank test for data which were not normally distributed. The mean score was computed and theoretical and skills score were categorized as excellent (80-100%=16-20), very good (70-79%=14-15.9), good (60-69.9%=12-13.9), fair (50-59%=10-11.9) and poor (0-49%=0-9.9)

Results: In urban school, the results of pretest theory revealed that 70.4% had excellent knowledge, 11.1% had very good knowledge. The post test theory in the same school was 70.4% for excellent knowledge, 18.5% for very good knowledge. The difference between theory pretest and posttest in urban school was statistically significant (p=0.007)

The results of pretest theory in rural school were different from those found in urban school with only 27.8% with excellent knowledge, 37% with very good knowledge. The post test theory for the same school was 48.1%, 40.7% for excellent and very good knowledge respectively. The difference between theory pretest and posttest in rural school was statistically significant (p<0.001)

There was a significant increase in handwashing skills from pretest to post test in both urban and rural school. In urban school the pretest revealed 22.22% of school children with excellent handwashing skills, and in post test almost all (94.4%) school children in urban school demonstrated excellent skills of handwashing. The difference between pretest and post test skills was statistically significant (p<0.001). In rural school, the same difference has been found from pretest to post test handwashing skills; in pretest, only 9.26% of school children had excellent handwashing skills and in posttest in the same school, all school children (100%) had excellent handwashing skills and the difference between pretest and post test skills was statistically significant (p<0.001).

Conclusion: Handwashing health education was effective to increase the knowledge and skills of school children regarding proper technique of handwashing in urban and rural public primary school and there is a need to teach other school children the detailed technique of handwashing with emphasis on those studying in rural area as their baseline handwashing knowledge and skills are poor compared to urban school children.

Keywords: Effectiveness, handwashing, school children, health education, knowledge, skills.

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