Blog, Schools and nurseries
Hand hygiene programme results in children improving adults’ hand washing habits
Oct
Why washing properly is so important
Some very interesting conclusions which support the importance and effectiveness of thorough hand washing have been drawn, as a result of an Education University of Hong Kong study, which was conducted at fifteen preschools facilities in the area.
A specialist infection control nurse carried out 45 minute weekly hand washing training sessions for children over a period of a month, with, significantly, a separate one hour session for parents, according to a recent article on the Medical Express website.
The basic premise for the research is that although effective hand hygiene has long been acknowledged as an “effective way” to help prevent the spread of (for the purposes of this research, influenza), it was suspected that parents had “inadequate knowledge” and parenting capabilities to help pass on the information to their children that ideally would have occurred.
Assistant Professor at the Department of Health and Physical Education Dr. Peggy Or Pui-lai, ran the investigation, with the main intention of determining whether flu absenteeism was exacerbated by an inadequate hand hygiene knowledge transfer, as it were, between parent and child.
Although the numbers of participants was comparatively small, the results showed a clear differential between those who washed well and those who didn’t – with incidents of flu describing from 21.5% to 12% over the 3 months of the study, as the hand washing technique training began to bear fruit.
Kids teach the parents!
As children learned to put their new-found handwashing skills into practice – improvements being noted included washing “the back of the hands, the back of the fingers, the thumbs and the wrists”, another interesting benefit gradually became apparent. Hand hygiene amongst the parents also improved markedly!
“The children also shared what they had learned with their parents, and their parents started paying more attention to proper handwashing.”
Positive parenting on hand hygiene helps reduce kindergarteners’ absenteeism from flu-like illnesses »
Hand wash units for children – place them wherever they’re needed!
Teal produces portable hand washing sinks that are idea for preschool and nursery children including the KiddiSynk and KiddiWash, which can be used equally effectively indoor or out.
The Teal range of mobile sinks includes the MediWash, Hygienius and Hygienius ProWash, BigSynk, Super Stallette, TEALwash, Handeman Xtra, Compact Classic, HandSpa, CliniWash – and now the new WashStand Xtra.