Compliance with domestic safety measures among undergraduates in halls of residence in public universities, Rivers State

Abstract

This study investigated the compliance with domestic safety among undergraduates in halls of residence in public universities, in Rivers State. The descriptive survey design using the triangulation mixed method was adopted with a population that consisted of 9,050 hostel residential undergraduate students in the three public universities in Rivers State with a sample size of 995, which was selected using the multi-stage sampling procedure. The instruments for data collection were an unstructured interview guide and a structured questionnaire with a reliability coefficient of 0.91 for compliance with domestic safety measures. The retrieved copies of the questionnaire were coded and analysed with the aid of SPSS using percentages. The findings of the study showed a high extent of compliance with domestic safety measures such as housekeeping (81.4%), and fire safety (67.9%). It was concluded that hostel residential undergraduate students in public universities in Rivers State generally had a high but not encompassing extent of compliance with domestic safety measures as poor compliance was found in some vital aspects. It was recommended that the government should employ more porters/portresses who will work the morning and night shifts for better supervision both in the male and female hostels as most of the unsafe acts reported were confirmed to occur during the hours when the porters were not on duty, particularly at night or evening hours.