ASSESSMENT OF ATTITUDE OF STUDENTS TOWARDS PERSONAL HYGIENE IN BOARDING JUNIOR SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN GUSAU METROPOLIS, ZAMFARA STATE NIGERIA

Abstract

Negative attitudes towards personal hygiene is one of the key foundations of infections such as gastroenteritis, colds, flu and COVID19. The paper assessed the attitude of students towards personal hygiene in boarding junior secondary schools in Gusau Metropolis, Zamfara State Nigeria. The study employed a descriptive survey research design. The population of this study comprise all Junior Secondary School students in boarding public Secondary Schools in Gusau Zamfara State in the 2019/2020 academic session with a total population of eight hundred and thirty. A purposive sampling technique was used to select all three boarding junior public secondary schools in Gusau metropolis. A total of 310 respondents which was 40% of the population were used for this study. The instrument used for the study was questionnaire with an internal consistency of 0.760 after the pilot test. The research questions were answered using mean and standard deviation while t-test was used to test the hypothesis at 0.05 level of significance The findings revealed that the boarding JSS students in public junior secondary schools in Gusau have a negative attitude towards personal hygiene and there was a significant difference in the attitudes of boarding JSS students in Public Junior Secondary Schools in Gusau Metropolis on personal hygiene based on class difference. It was recommended that personal hygiene should be incorporated into the school curriculum to improve students’ attitudes towards good hygiene in secondary schools.