1.1 Introduction
Personal hygiene is an important global public health issue since long. Hygiene refers to practices associated with ensuring good health and cleanliness. Personal hygiene is the practice of maintaining cleanliness of one’s own body. Good hygienic care as well as practices in terms of personal hygiene contributes to a large extent on factors relating to healthful living and prevention of hazards from diseases. These health risk factors are directly related to some important daily activities implicated with worthy operational actions and obligatory responsibilities, such as washing hands before meals and after defecation with soap, brushing teeth at least twice a day specially after breakfast and after meals, taking bath with soap regularly, keeping nails short and taking regular exercise (Ali et al, 2013).
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Personal hygiene deficiency diseases have been found to be a serious public health problem and people often affected are school children. These have been attributed to inadequate knowledge of personal hygiene and its practices. This trend is especially notable in developing countries where acute respiratory and intestinal infections are the primary causes of morbidity and mortality among young children. Inadequate sanitary conditions and poor hygiene practices play major roles in the increased burden of communicable disease within these developing countries. The morbidities arising due to poor personal hygiene practices are more evident in the slum areas because of high population density, spread of respiratory infection, inadequate water supply, lack of sanitary facility, diarrhea and warm infestation, inadequate nutrition leading to anemia, malnutrition and vitamin deficiency (Raghava, 2005).
The COVID-19 pandemic since its outbreak in 2019 in China has affected the world economy (Ogunode, N.J, Ndubisi, A.G, and Terfa, A.C, 2021). According to the World Health Organization (WHO 2020), corona viruses are a family of viruses that cause illnesses ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). These viruses were originally transmitted from animals to people. SARS, for instance, was transmitted from civet cats to humans while MERS moved to humans from a type of camel. Several known corona viruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans. The name corona virus comes from the Latin word corona, meaning crown or halo. Under an electron microscope, the looks like it is surrounded by a solar corona. The novel corona virus, identified by Chinese authorities on January 7 and since named SARS-CoV-2, is a new strain that had not been previously identified in humans (Wikipedia, 2020). The recent outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic increased the gaps in the education sector globally (Onyema, E.M, Eucheria, N.C., Obafemi, F.A,et al, 2020). The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that swept across the globe about a year now, has not only had a significant impact on public health, society, and the economy as a whole, it has also wreaked havoc on the academic calendar (OgunodeN.J, Ndubisi, A.G, and Terfa, A.C, 2021). The coronavirus pandemic has no boundaries, and the effect is large and fast. Just within few months of the outbreak of the disease, it has drastically changed the lifestyles of the entire world with billions of people being forced to ‘stay at home’, ‘observe self-isolations’, and work and learn from home (Onyema E.M, Eucheria, N.C., Obafemi, F.Aet al, 2020). It has limited the freedom of students to move, practicalize and learn physically.
The Minister of Education and Culture issued a policy in the form of Minister of Education and Culture Circular Letter Number 3 of 2020 concerning Prevention of COVID-19 in the Education Unit, and Number 36962/MPK.A/HK/2020, this policy stipulates that the learning process that is usually carried out in schools is turned into online learning to avoid an increase in the number of patients caused by Covid 19 including infrastructure that supports online learning such as facilities and stable networks/signals. The output of learning in the form of products produced by students is assessed qualitatively by assessing various aspects without being required to give a quantitative score (Kemdikbud, 2020).
Therefore, in Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to know the Adolescent Personal Hygiene Practices and Challenges in the Past Covid-19.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Investigation revealed that the closures of schools and universities is said to have impacted over 70% of the world's inhabitants (Aborodeet al, 2020). The school-closure measure means learners previously in school are no longer going to school. There is no clinically approved antiviral drug or vaccine available to be used against COVID-19. However, few broad-spectrum antiviral drugs have been evaluated against COVID-19 in clinical trials, resulted in clinical recovery.
Nurses get in contact with patients on a daily basis, so they are exposed to sharp injuries and many types of infections due to the nature of their occupation. It is important to follow standard precautions to reduce transmission of infections. In Palestine, despite of the availability of protocol for infection control in hospitals, it is applicable in varied degree from hospital to hospital. In addition, after reviewing documents from Palestinian Health Information Centre in MOH, it doesn't have any statistics regarding nurses' knowledge and practice of SP measures and those related to SI among health care workers.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to examine the Adolescent Personal Hygiene Practices and Challenges in the Past Covid-19. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To investigate the challenges faced by adolescents towards Past Covid-19 Personal Hygiene Practices;
- To determine the factors inhibiting the Adolescent Personal Hygiene Practices during Past Covid-19; and
- To assess the knowledge of Personal Hygiene Practices among the senior secondary school students in the area under study.
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- Are challenges faced by adolescents towards Past Covid-19 Personal Hygiene Practices?
- What are the factors inhibiting the Adolescent Personal Hygiene Practices during Past Covid-19?
- What is the knowledge of Personal Hygiene Practices among the senior secondary school students in the area under study?
1.6 Research Hypothesis
In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.
Hypothesis One
- H0: There is no significant challenge faced by adolescents towards Past Covid-19 Personal Hygiene Practices in the area under study
- H1: There is a significant challenge faced by adolescents towards Past Covid-19 Personal Hygiene Practices in the area under study
1.7 Significance of Study
Findings of the study will help in showing the level of Attitude and Perception Health Workers exhibit on the awareness of Covid-19 Transmission and Prevention in Delta State Primary Health Care Centre. The result will also help in building up knowledge base on the care of the elderly patients. Improving data base on patients’ health nutrition and standard of living which will help for further research, advocacy, policy dialogue and programming.
This study will also be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.8 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the Adolescent Personal Hygiene Practices and Challenges in the Past Covid-19 in Delta State Primary Health Care Centre.
1.9 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
1.10 Definition of Terms
COVID 19: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infection which is as a result of a novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus.
Education: It is the process of giving systematic instruction especially at a school or university.
