Socio-demographic characteristics
A total of 739 respondents were interviewed with response rate of 100%.Among those five hundred forty one (73%) were from government school and one hundred ninety eight (27%) were from private school. Three hundred seventy eight (51.2%) were female and the remaining were males. Out of total respondents two hundred thirty two (31.4%), and five hundred seven (68.6%) were between age group of 6-11 and 12+ years respectively.
Regarding parent education, one hundred fifty two (20.6%) mother were illiterate, two hundred ninety nine (40.5%) mother completed primary education, one hundred seventy six (23.8%) mother completed secondary education, sixty seven (9.1%) mother college graduate, forty five (6.1%) mother university graduate. seventy nine (10.7%) fathers were illiterate, two hundred two (27.3%) fathers completed primary education, two hundred eleven (28.6%) fathers completed Secondary education, eighty seven (11.8%) fathers were college graduate and one hundred sixty (21.7%) fathers were university graduates. And details of socio-demographic characteristics including: religion, ethnicity, educational status of students are shown in (Table1).
Water supply situation at school and home
Among 12 primary schools observed, all of them have (100%) water facilities in which pipe water is the main source. Six hundred forty seven (87.6%) of respondents reported that water is available at their home. The main source of water includes, six hundred twenty (95.8%) pipe water. Regarding, the frequency of water availability at home, three hundred forty (52.6%) respondents reported that water is always available, three hundred four (47.0%) indicated water is sometimes available and others responded water is not available at all.
School latrine, hand washing stand, water and soap/ash related factors at school near to toilet.
Observed school latrine, hand washing stand, water and soap/ash related factors at school. Among 12 primary school observed, all the schools have (100%) toilet, eleven schools (91.7%) have hand washing stand near to toilet, out of eleven hand washing stand, five (41.7%) has water (functional) the others are locked and damaged, and none of the school has soap/ash near to toilet for hand washing (See AdditionalTable ).
Seven hundred thirty four (99.3%) toilet available at home, five hundred nine (68.9%) hand washing stand with water and three hundred seventy nine (74.4%) soap/ash available at home near to toilet for hand washing.
Hand washing practice, parent influence, teacher/school influence, pear influence, learning about HWP and related factors
Those students who asked for hand washing yesterday, five hundred ninety nine (80.9%) reported washed their hands at critical times. And form this, three hundred forty two (57.1%) washed hands before meal using soap/ash and three hundred eight (51.4%) washed hands after toilet using soap/ash. those who washed their hands using water only, two hundred ninety seven (49.6%) before meal and three hundred thirteen (52.3%) after toilet (Table 2 ).
School children’s also asked whether they have information about hand washing practice, six hundred forty eight (87.7%) have the information. And the information they obtained from, five hundred (77.2%) from family, three hundred sixty three (56.0%) from teachers and school and forty five (6.9%) from friends (pears).
Students also asked for majors to be taken for prevention of diarrhea, six hundred eight (82.3%) files prevention from food contamination, five hundred ninety nine (81.1%) environmental sanitation and five hundred seventy nine (78.3%) Wash hands at critical times.
Concerning learning about personal hygiene and sanitation as one subject in the class, six hundred eighty one (92.2%) helps to remember and wash hands, six hundred forty two (86.9%) helps to know the use of hand washing practice, five hundred eighty one (78.6%) helps to teach our family. They also assessed for proper hand washing steps by using yes/no questions: those who said yes six hundred thirteen (82.9%) and out of this who showed the step is sixty two (9.9%) correctly.
Factors that determine hand washing practice
Logistic regression analysis was used to identify the variables which influence good hand washing practice and to control the effect of confounding variable on hand washing practice. To determine the factors associated with hand washing practice bivariate and multivariate analysis, PV<0.05 and 95%CI were used. Availability of hand washing material, availability of soap/ash, availability of water and pear influence found to have association with good hand washing practice (Table 3).
Availability of hand washing material was associated with good hand washing practice. Students who accessed hand washing material were1.75 times (AOR=95%CI= 1.75 (1.21, 2.22) more likely to wash their hands than who do not have the material. Regarding availability of soap/ash those who have access to soap/ash 3.227 times (AOR=95% CI= 3.227(2.022, 5.152) more likely to wash their hands than who have not the access. Regarding availability of water those who have availability of water 1.756 times (AOR =95% CI= 1.756(1.066, 2.894) more likely to wash their hands from those students who don’t have water access. Regarding pear influence on hand washing practice, those who are influenced by their claque 68.5 times (AOR=95% CI= 0.315(0.101, 0.984) less likely to wash their hands using soap/ash at critical times. None of the socio-demographic characteristics were significantly associated with hand washing practices. However, girls were more likely to wash hands properly than boys (COR = 1.24).