The second grade category students' practises about personal hygiene in regional boarding primary school

The sample of this study, which was carried out with the aim of determining the personal hygiene practises of second grade category (6, 7 and 8th grade) boarding students, consists of 142 female and 146 male, making a total of 288 boarding students attending to Yukarıkocayatak Regional Boarding Primary School in Serik in Antalya. In order to collect the data, a survey including questions related to students? demographic information and personal hygiene practises has been conducted. The collected data has been checked out and analyzed via statistical computing systems (SPSS 18.0). % 49,3 of the students participating to study is female and % 50,7 is male. %28,5 of the students is from 6th grade, %34,7 is from 7th grade and %36,8 is from 8th grade. % 33 of them is boarding students and % 67 is day students. According to the study results, female students have bath more frequently than male students in winter, and it is found that there is a meaningful difference between students according to gender in terms of bathing frequency (p?0.05). Furthermore, it determined that female students brush their teeth more frequently and regularly than male students. The difference is meaningful (p?0.05). Moreover, it is observed that day students change their toothbrushes more often than boarding students. A meaningful difference between changing tootbrushes and education type has been determined (p?0.05). Most of the students (%80,6) brush their teeth everyday on a regular basis, almost all of the students (%91,8) dry their hands with cloth towels and wash their feet everyday, more than half of the students dry their feet with cloth towels, do not have nail-biting habits and change their socks everyday; half of the students (%49) change their undergarments in 2-3 days, clean their noses regularly with a running water or with a clean tissue; more than half of the students (%52,8) clean their ears with the help of a cotton tip and almost half of them (%46,9) have never been to a dentist. Considering the study results, it is recommended that in order to enhance the boarding students? hygiene practices, seminars and lectures should be given by experts and informative educational materials (such as hand outs, posters, brochures) should be prepared and presented to students, scholl staff and parents. Key Words: Hygiene, Personal Hygiene, Regional Boarding Primary School.