Evaluation of Knowledge and Psychomotor Skills of Lady Health Visitors about Immunization

Abstract

Adequate training of Lady Health Visitors is foundational for the prosperity of community health worker scheme in Pakistan.

Objective:  To determine the deficiencies in the training Lady Health Visitors by assessing their knowledge and psychomotor skills.

Study Design:  Cross – sectional study.

Study Duration and Place:  The study was conducted in 6 – month duration in Community Medicine Department, KEMU, Lahore.

Subjects and Methodology:  A cross – sectional stu-dy was carried out at Model Maternal and Child Care Centre, Montgomery Road, Lahore. A total of 100 Lady Health Visitors were selected on the basis of laid down inclusion criteria. Data was collected through a pretested questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS version.

Results:  LHVs had an adept comprehension of vaccinations of 9 diseases covered by EPI (99%). They had adequate knowledge of antenatal vaccines (64%), perinatal vaccines (87%) and postnatal (77%) vaccines, indicating good recall. But they had less grasp on the method of filling vaccination cards (30%) and counselling about side effects of vaccines (17%) showing low psychomotor skills. However, recall and psychomotor skills showed significant correlation (p < 0.05).

Conclusion:  Our study concluded that there is a significant correlation between recall and psychomotor skills of our Lady Health Visitors. By analyzing the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the training of Lady Health Visitors, our study showed that they had better recall but lower psychomotor skills. Hence modifications are required in their training to improve psychomotor skills.