Family factors associated with children's handwashing hygiene behavior

Abstract

Despite the importance of children’s hand hygiene and family influence on children’s behaviors, few studies have been dedicated to identifying family factors affecting handwashing practice. This study investigated the entire group of sixth-grade students (N = 2323) and their parents (N = 2089) at 11 elementary schools randomly selected from the Seoul Metropolitan Area, Korea. The results show that parents’ handwashing practice, parent and child bonding, and shared time have a significant correlation with children’s hand hygiene practice. The thoroughness of hand cleansing is more likely to be associated with health education, parents’ practice of proper handwashing, greater parent–child bonding, and a greater amount of shared time with parents. Parent–child bonding and shared time are crucial in promoting children’s hand hygiene. These results imply that public health policies need to be targeted at not only providing health education but at increasing parent–child bonding and shared time in order to promote children’s health more effectively.