Knowledge and counseling skills of Accredited Social Health Activists on Infant and Young Child Feeding: A community-based study in a rural block of West Bengal, India

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3126/ajms.v15i11.69430

Keywords:

Accredited social health activists; Counseling skills; Infant and young child feeding; Knowledge

Abstract

Background: Nutrition is critical to the health and development of infants and children. Nutritional deficiencies in early life result in long-term impairment in growth. Optimal infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices are one of the most effective interventions in improving child health.

Aims and Objectives: The study was conducted to assess the knowledge and counseling skills of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) regarding IYCF in Bhatar community development block of Purba Bardhaman District.

Materials and Methods: A descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted among 110 study subjects selected randomly from 17 subcenters and 38 health and wellness centers of Bhatar block of Purba Bardhaman District. It was conducted using a pre-designed, pre-tested schedule having a total score of 16, from November 2023 to February 2024.

Results: Mean knowledge score of ASHAs regarding IYCF was 12.05±2.24. On further analysis, good, average, and poor knowledge about IYCF was observed among 9.1%, 78.2%, and 12.7% of the ASHA workers, respectively. On univariate analysis, level of knowledge was found to be significantly associated with duration of service (P=0.001) and training status (P=0.00) of ASHAs. It was observed that messages regarding the addition of oil/ghee and proper hand washing after handling child’s excreta were mostly missed during counseling sessions.

Conclusions: Most ASHA workers had correct knowledge on IYCF but during counseling sessions, most of the key messages were not provided by them to mothers. Thus, it was concluded that a change in training approach is necessary for enhancing counseling skills and knowledge-sharing by ASHAs.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.
Abstract
45
PDF
49

Downloads

Published

2024-11-01

How to Cite

Aprajita Jha, Pramit Goswami, Sutapa Mandal, Pranita Taraphdar, Arif Hossain, & Suman Sannigrahi. (2024). Knowledge and counseling skills of Accredited Social Health Activists on Infant and Young Child Feeding: A community-based study in a rural block of West Bengal, India. Asian Journal of Medical Sciences, 15(11), 77–83. https://doi.org/10.3126/ajms.v15i11.69430

Issue

Vol. 15 No. 11 (2024)

Section

Original Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2024 Asian Journal of Medical Sciences

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. The journal holds copyright and publishes the work under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC license that permits use, distribution and reprduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. The journal should be recognised as the original publisher of this work.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).