Management of personal hygiene in secondary institutions of learning amidst current delta strain of covid-19 in south south nigeria

Abstract

This research was carried out to investigate the management of personal hygiene among secondary school students in post Covid-19 Era in South-South geopolitical Zone of Nigeria. The implication of this study was to encourage a good personal hygiene daily routine among secondary school female students so as to forestall onset of diseases that could go a long way to affect their well-being as well as academic performance. Three research questions and three hypotheses guided the study. Six intact classes were selected from a population of eighty-four thousand six hundred and four (84,604) secondary school female students. Using multistage sampling, a total of three hundred and sixty (360) secondary school female students were selected from the six states that make up the South-South Nigeria (60 per state).A causal-comparative design was utilized for the study. The Management of Personal Hygiene Questionnaire (MPHQ), validated by experts which achieved a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.82 was used for data collection. Independent t-test was used for data analysis, to compare urban and rural secondary school female students at p < 0.05. Result revealed that urban secondary school female students reported significantly higher management of personal hygiene than their rural counterparts. The study concluded that location is a key determinant of personal hygiene management. It was therefore recommended among others that, seminars and public campaigns on personal hygiene should be highly promoted and enforced in schools, the home-front, and communities at large by public health experts and related NGOs, as these will go a long way to teach secondary school female students, especially in rural areas to understand the importance of hand-washing, regular use of sanitizer and mask-wearing on their personal hygiene.