Female community health volunteers service utilization for childhood illness- improving quality of health services only is not enough: a cross-sectional study in mid-western region, Nepal

BMC Health Services Research

Masamine Jimba³  Ram Chandra Silwal¹  Amod Kumar Poudyal²  Junko Yasuoka³  Moe Miyaguchi³ 

[1] Green Tara (NGO), Kathmandu, Nepal;Department of Community Medicine and Public Health, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal;Department of Community and Global Health, the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

关键词: Nepal;    Female community health workers;    Health care seeking behavior;    Child health services;   

Others  :  1126498
DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6963-14-383

 received in 2013-07-28, accepted in 2014-09-08,  发布年份 2014

【 摘 要 】

Background

Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHVs) are considered service providers for major health problems at the community level in Nepal. However, few studies have been conducted about the roles of FCHVs from the users’ perspective. This study sought to examine the current status of FCHV service utilization and identify the determinants of caregivers’ utilization of FCHVs’ health services in the mid-western region of Nepal.

Methods

This cross-sectional study targeted 446 caregivers of children under five years of age and whose children had ever fallen ill in the study village development committees (VDCs) of three districts of Nepal. Caregivers were asked about their usual health practices for childhood illness, health service utilization for childhood illness, children’s health condition, satisfaction with health services, and socio-demographic status. Descriptive statistics and multiple logistic regression were used for analysis.

Results

Among 446 caregivers, 66.8% had never sought care from FCHVs for their children’s illnesses in their lifetime, and more than 50% of them were unaware of FCHVs’ services for acute respiratory infection and diarrhea. Among 316 caregivers whose child had an illness during the last seven months, 92.3% of them (n = 293) did not take their child to FCHVs. The main reasons were the lack of medicine available from them and their incompetency in providing care. Among the 446 caregivers, those who participated in a mothers’ group (n = 82) were more likely to use FCHVs’ services in their lifetime (AOR = 3.23, 95% CI =1.81-5.76).

Conclusions

Caregivers can gain benefit by using FCHV’s health services, but a majority of the caregivers did not seek care from FCHVs due to its limited quality. Raising caregivers’ awareness on FCHV is equally important at community level.

【 授权许可】

   
2014 Miyaguchi et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

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