The effect of the theory of planned behavior based hand hygiene intervention program on the health outcomes and school absenteeism of the primary school students: Quasi-experimental study.

Background: Acute upper respiratory tract infections are the most common infections among school children. Improving water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities in schools is an important intervention for the healthy development of children. The most important component of this intervention is hand washing, which is the primary infection control measure.

Aim: This study aims to test the effect of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) based hand hygiene intervention program on the health outcomes and school absenteeism of students.

Method: The study is quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest control groups. The study was conducted with 159 students (intervention: 82, control: 77) in two separate primary schools that were assigned to intervention and control groups. The intervention group were applied a TPB-based hand hygiene intervention program for the school children. The data were collected using the Student Questionnaire, Hand Hygiene Assessment Question Form, and Surveillance Form.

Findings: The mean Hand Hygiene Assessment Question Form Hand Hygiene Behavior scores did not differ between the groups in the pre- and posttest (p > .05). In the posttest, the frequency of encountering a ten-week-upper respiratory tract infection symptom (U = 5277.50 p < .0001), school absenteeism days (p = .046) and absenteeism episodes (p = .043) was lower in the intervention group than in the control group.

Conclusions: The findings suggest that was concluded that the TPB-based hand hygiene intervention program did not make a difference in creating hand hygiene behavior in school children compared to the classical education. The program was effective in reducing upper respiratory tract infections and school absenteeism due to these infections.