Knowledge and practice of female community health volunteers on maternal and child health services

Abstract

Introduction: Female Community Health Volunteers are the major backbone of the Female Community Health Volunteer program who work in the field of maternal and child health in community. They have been contributing to improvement of maternal and child health in Nepal since the introduction of this program. This study aimed to assess the knowledge and practice of FCHVs on maternal and child health services.

Method: Study was conducted among Female Community Health Volunteers of randomly selected wards of Pokhara Metropolitan City. Data was collected via self-administered questionnaire in Nepali language. Statistical Package of Social Sciences version 16.0 was used for data analysis. Descriptive statistics was used to find out knowledge and practice; and inferential statistics (chi-square) was used for finding out association between background characteristics and level of knowledge and also with level of practice. Association between level of knowledge and level of practice was also sought by chi-square test.

Result: Fifty percent of Female Community Health Volunteers had good level of knowledge and practice. There was significant association between ethnicity (p=0.001) and level of practice and also between level of knowledge and level of practice (p=0.037). However, none of the background variables had significant association with level of knowledge.

Conclusion: Half of the female community health volunteers had good level of knowledge and satisfactory level of practice. There was significant association between ethnicity and level of practice. There was significant association between knowledge and practice.