Sustainability of National Health Promotion Policy through Personal Hygiene

Abstract

Health promotion is a rapidly emerging approach to health development. There is growing evidence, which shows that health promotion makes a positive contribution to the improvement of human health. The Federal Government of Nigeria health promotion policy contains guidelines to assist in creating positive outcomes such as empowerment for health action and increased community involvement. One such guideline is the improvement of heath through personal hygiene. The level of knowledge of personal health and hygiene in the Niger Delta region is perceived to be limited. Poor hygiene and health practices restrict the psychological and health well-being of adolescent, more especially girls. The aim of this study is to investigate personal hygiene among junior and senior secondary school students in Yenagoa Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, the heart beat of the Niger Delta region. The study further examines the practice of personal hygiene with respect to care of the body and clothing. The design of the study was a pretest-posttest design. This involves pretesting participants’ knowledge of personal hygiene before a health talk on personal hygiene and also post testing them after the health talk. The population of the study comprises senior secondary two (SS2) and Junior Secondary Two (JS2) students from urban and rural settings. Forty students were randomly selected from each school to be involved in the study making a total sample of eighty students. The Personal Hygiene Test which was developed by the researcher was used to collect data and the data were analysed using mean, standard deviation, t-test and ANOVA. The study reveals that participants do not have adequate knowledge of personal hygiene before the commencement of the study as mean and standard deviation for baseline measurement (pretest) was low for both urban and rural students. But after the health talk (application of treatment – health talk on personal hygiene) the post-test revealed a significant increase in knowledge of personal hygiene by both classes (JS2 and SS2). It is therefore recommended that there should be a strong emphasis of personal hygiene in the school curriculum.