Abstract :
Introduction: (National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has created a cadre of trained female community health activists called Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) to strengthen the health care system and to mobilize community towards increased utilization of existing health services. The contribution of the Accredited Social Health ActivistASHA) to the achievement of the country’s targets for new-born & child health services is critical. The present study was planned with objective to assess & compare the level of knowledge of ASHA workers regarding child health services working in rural and urban areas of a block of Haryana.
Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional, community-based study was conducted in block Barwala, district Hisar of Haryana. The assessment of knowledge of ASHA workers was done on the basis of scoring. Appropriate statistical tests like percentages and chi-square (?2) test were applied.
Result: Regarding child health services majority of ASHA workers had good knowledge, assessed by score gained by them and none of them was having poor knowledge about child health services. However, in rural area score gained was better than urban area & the observed difference was found to be statistically significant. Majority of ASHA workers either working in rural or urban areas, were having inadequate knowledge about identification of danger signs during diarrhoea & acute respiratory infection in a child and danger signs of new born. They had adequate knowledge regarding cord stump care; breast Feeding practices; routine Immunization; Vitamin A supplement and home based post natal care (HBPNC) visits.
Conclusion: Inadequate knowledge of ASHA workers regarding new born care should be taken into consideration. Supportive supervision should be done in their working area.
Keyword :
Child health services, ASHA, Rural, Urban, Danger signs.