KAP Study of Woman Hairdressers about Hygiene and Infectious Diseases in Damghan City

Hairdressing is one of the important occupations influencing population health especially women. This research has been done to determine the degree of knowledge, attitude, and practice of Damghan women hairdressers in the field of personal and general hygiene. This analytical descriptive research was performed on 87 female hair dressers in Damghan. Data were collected using a questionnaire arranged in four fields (i.e. personal and vocational sanitation, Measuring the attitude and tendency to apply it, hygienic function, and compliance with article 13 of Iranian code of practice on beauty salons). The data were analyzed using SPSS soft ware version 16. The average age for the subjects was 31.92 with standard deviation of 7.6. 20.7 percent of cases had academic education, 65.5 percent had diploma and the remaining with lower than high school degree. Only 8 percent of them had good hygienic information. The main source of information for 54 percents of subjects was health care workers. 69 percent of hairdressers had suitable personal hygienic condition. Only 46 percents had a complete vaccination certificate for hepatitis B and 87.3 percent believed that they are at risk of infectious diseases and 62 percents were concerned about Hepatitis. There was a significant relationship between work experience and correctly antisepticising methods of instruments (p<0.05). Lack of the comprehensive health knowledge and practice, highlight the need for promotion of knowledge, attitude, and practice of hairdressers through training courses