Maternal Health Literacy and Hand Hygiene Practices among Caregivers of Children Under Five: A Cross-Sectional Study in India

Articles in Press

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Dept. of Social and Health Innovation, Prasanna School of Public Health, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Udupi, Karnataka, India

2 Assistant Professor, Department of Basic Medical Sciences, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Udupi, Karnataka, India

3 Associate Professor & Coordinator, Manipal Health Literacy Unit, Dept. of Social and Health Innovation, Prasanna School of Public Health, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Udupi, Karnataka, India

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Children under five are dependent on caregiver's hand washing and their health literacy for their health and well-being attention to which was reinforced during COVID-19. A caregiver's hands can act as primordial prevention for children under five. The current study aimed to assess caregiver's health literacy and WHO-five moments of hand hygiene in a uni-center of a developing country.

Materials and Methods: To explore the practice and attitude of WHO-Five Moments of hand washing and caregiver's health literacy using the Maternal Health Literacy (MaHeLi) survey a cross-sectional study was conducted at a single centre at a developing country among 418 caregivers of children under five. The analysis and reporting of variables utilized descriptive, univariate, paired t-test, and multivariate analysis methods.

Results: Caregivers' handwashing practices were significantly associated with education level and socioeconomic status (P-value ≤ 0.001). A positive correlation (P-value = 0.003) was observed between health literacy and handwashing practices, with caregivers demonstrating better hygiene practices after caregiving activities than before (P-value ≤ 0.001). Although most participants reported moderate levels of handwashing, only a small percentage practices optimum handwashing before or after child care. Caregivers with lower health literacy were less likely to perform adequate hand hygiene.

Conclusions: Our study suggests that caregivers with higher health literacy demonstrated better hand hygiene practices. Enhancing health literacy and promoting handwashing education, especially in paediatric care settings and at community, could help improve hygiene practices among caregivers. These findings reflects the need for healthcare providers and policymakers to consider targeted interventions on developing health literacy and hand hygiene practices to reduce infections in children under five.

Keywords

Acknowledgments: We acknowledge and thank Dr. Leslie E. Lewis, all the faculty, clinicians and nursing staff of paediatric department for rendering their support to carry out the study.  


Availability of data and materials: All data is reserved for researchers and accessible upon reasonable request.


Conflicts of interests: None to declare.


Consent for publication: Parents were provided with study related information and informed consent prior to their participation was obtained.


Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study was conducted in accordance with the ethical principles outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Ethics Committee of Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, and all necessary permissions were secured. 


Funding: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.


Author contributions: Ann Susan JV: Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft. Abhishek Chaturvedi: Validation, Visualization, Writing – review and editing. Usha Rani: Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Project administration, Resources, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review and editing.

 

Open Access Policy: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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