Train-the-trainer model in public health practice: Feasibility of senior nursing students as catalysts for hand hygiene education in school-aged children.

Abstract

Effective hand hygiene is essential for mitigating the transmission of infectious diseases among school-aged children. However, community schools encounter challenges in implementation due to limited staff and funding. This study aims to evaluate the feasibility of utilizing senior nursing students as volunteers to implement hand hygiene education in community schools. Two primary schools were selected through convenience sampling and randomly divided into a control group and an intervention group. A total of 48 students in grades 3-5 were recruited via proportional stratified sampling for each group. The control group received a hand hygiene lecture at baseline and two months later. In contrast, the intervention group implemented a train-the-trainer model, where senior nursing students were trained as volunteers to deliver a standardized series of hand hygiene sessions to the schoolchildren based control group. Both groups were evaluated for hand hygiene knowledge, handwashing technique, and bacterial colony-forming units (CFU) from hand samples. These outcomes were analyzed using Student's t-tests or Chi-square tests. The intervention group exhibited significantly higher hand hygiene knowledge scores (19.38 ± 5.67) and technique qualification rates (93.8%) compared to the control group (<i>P</i> < .05). Furthermore, the intervention group showed significantly lower hand specimen colony counts (10.13 ± 5.91 CFU) than the control group (<i>P</i> < .05). Leveraging trained senior nursing students as volunteers provides a cost-effective and feasible strategy for delivering sustained hand hygiene education in community schools.