Effectiveness of Stroke Awareness Programme for Accredited Social Health Activists and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives at Ramanagara District of Karnataka State

Abstract

Background: Public awareness and health education on warning symptoms of transient ischemic attack and earlystroke by optimum use of existing mass media is of utmost importance in the success of stroke campaigns. Thereis a scarcity of data available on effectiveness of stroke awareness programme.Objective: The present study was conducted with an objective to evaluate the effectiveness of stroke awarenessprogramme among Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA) and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANM) atRamanagara district of Karnataka State.Material and Methods: This was an interventional study conducted between January 2015 to January 2016 with139 study subjects. In this study, a pretested semi structured questionnaire containing 50 questions across differentdomains was used to collect data and the stroke manual — “Stroke Care Resource Manual in The Community”was provided to all the study subjects for reading. Pre-test and post-test interventions were conducted at districttraining hall of Ramanagara with the support of local district programme manager. Based on the scoring pattern,the level of awareness amongst ASHA and ANM workers for each domain as well as overall stroke awarenesswas computed. The assimilated data was analyzed using various statistical methods – descriptive statistics (mean,standard deviation, standard error) and t-test was used to access the response scores obtained in each domain, preand post training. p-value <0.05 was considered statistically significant. All statistical analysis was done usingMicrosoft Excel 2007 and statistical software like SPSS.Results: In our study, majority of study subjects belonged to age group of 35-39 years i.e. 48/139 (34.50%)and 71.90% study subjects had 5-6 years of working experience. Out of 139 study subjects, 58 (41.70%), 34(24.50%), 37 (26.60%) and 10 (7.20%) had the education levels of middle school, high school, Pre-universityeducation and degree respectively. It was observed that there has been a statistically significant (p<0.001) increasein mean scores of before and after intervention in all 6 domains of stroke awareness except in treatment domain.In the present study it was observed that the proportion of study subjects with Grade ‘A’ has been increasedafter training in all domains except treatment domain, wherein it remains unchanged. The results on change in In conclusion, facilitation of “Stroke Care Resource Manual” and training sessions helped in the improvementof knowledge on stroke awareness among ASHA and ANMs working within the limits of Ramanagara district ofKarnataka state.