ASSESSMENT OF PREPAREDNESS ACTIVITIES AND BENEFICIARY SATISFACTION OF DASTAK ABHIYAN

Abstract

Background and Objectives: The Dastak Abhiyan is an Initiative of Government of Madhya Pradesh which was pilot tested in November 2016 and showed promising outcomes. This campaign deals with active case finding house to house for Diarrhea, Pneumonia, Severe Acute Malnutrition, Severe Anemia and their treatment and referral by the Dastak Team comprising of Auxiliary Nurse Midwife, Accredited Social Health Activist, and Anganwadi Worker. In this study, we attempted to assess the availability of the drugs and necessary commodities, before the commencement of Abhiyan to frontline health workers and beneficiaries’ response towards this initiative in 4 districts of Madhya Pradesh viz. Jhabua, Sheopur, Raisen, and Bhopal.

Methods: The study used modified WHO’s 30 cluster sampling technique and 7 households in each village were selected for assessment of beneficiary satisfaction and officials at District, Block and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives were interviewed to assess the preparedness of the campaign.

Results: The Preparedness activities at the state and district level were in full swing and with immense enthusiasm but that zeal was found to be missing in the frontline health workers. In our study, we also found out few gaps such as FLWs missed on carrying out few activities Blood Test, MUAC measurement, failure to demonstrate ORS and Handwashing as per the beneficiaries’ responses. The beneficiaries were satisfied at this initiative of Government of Madhya Pradesh and their responses were welcoming towards the Dastak Abhiyan.

Interpretation & conclusions: Our study found the need to strengthen training modules, communication gaps in conveying the training schedules, to customize micro plan in consultation with the ANM of that village. Our study also highlighted the need for supportive supervision, implementation of post-training questionnaires for FLWs to assess the knowledge gained by them during the training session. On our recommendation, the officials at state took corrective measure for WHO color scales having indistinct color shades as complained by the FLWs.