A study of handwashing habits and skills among kindergarteners

Reporting day: 2021/ 09 / 28 /  
Reporter: Marie Ueno

I’m Marie Ueno, a student at Shinshu University’s Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences. I’m working on a study of handwashing habits and washing skills among kindergarteners.
For this study, we conducted a questionnaire survey of kindergarteners’ handwashing habits reported by parents and an observational study of kindergartners’ handwashing skills.
 The results of the survey showed that the most common situations where kindergarteners reported not washing their hands were, in order, after coughing or sneezing, before snacks, and before meals. As for handwashing methods, it was revealed that younger children and children in the middle of the school year do not fully learn how to use soap when washing their hands, and even when they are in the upper grades, they do not fully learn how to rinse and wipe their hands. Regarding handwashing time and rinsing time, younger children tended to spend less time washing their hands, and all grades tended to spend less time rinsing. In addition, there was a tendency for young children to forget to wash areas other than the palms of their hands when washing their hands, and for older children to forget to wash their thumbs, fingertips, and wrists.
 Based on the results of this study, we implemented handwashing education for kindergarteners, and after the educational intervention, we surveyed handwashing habits and handwashing skills again. In the future, we would like to report on the effects of the intervention of handwashing education.

A survey of infants' hand washing methods.

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