scholarly journals Empowering community health volunteer on community-based tuberculosis case management programs in lower-income countries: A systematic review

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhamad Jauhar ◽  
I Gusti Ayu Putu Desy Rohana ◽  
Utami Rachmawati ◽  
Lita Heni Kusumawardani ◽  
Rasdiyanah Rasdiyanah
Keyword(s):  
Case Management ◽  
Community Health ◽  
Disease Transmission ◽  
Case Finding ◽  
Health Care Facilities ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Tuberculosis Case ◽  
Health Volunteer ◽  
Community Health Volunteers ◽  
Community Health Volunteer

Globally, almost 40% of tuberculosis clients are undiagnosed and delayed treatment. This condition leads to disease transmission and increasing new cases. Healthcare workers and community health volunteers as an active case finding frontliner and case manager in the community. The elevated numbers of new case findings and comprehensive management of diseases are the successful indicators of the tuberculosis prevention program. This study identified research articles related to community health volunteer empowerment in tuberculosis case management. Literature study of 20 articles from journal database, such as: Science Direct, Proquest, Scopus, and EBSCO for the last 5 years. It used keywords tuberculosis, community volunteer or empowerment, community-based early case finding. Data were analyzed in tables consist of title, author, year, methodology, result, and recommendation. The empowerment of the community health volunteers was effective in increasing tuberculosis case finding, especially in the border areas, remote areas and rural area. The existence of the community health volunteers brought tuberculosis services closer to the community and able to minimize barriers of health access and costs. Increasing the capacity of the community health volunteers is needed to support their role. Community health volunteers with a history of tuberculosis or from a family with tuberculosis are more acceptable in the community so the success of case finding and treatment is achieved. Community health volunteers worked through home visits were able to change community’s perspectives, promote the formation of health seeking behavior and minimize public-stigma. The empowerment of the community health volunteers is essentially needed as the alternative strategies to find new cases in the community and strengthen its management. There need to provide a wholesome moral and material support from the government for the community health volunteers. This can be integrated into the management of tuberculosis programs in primary health care facilities.

scholarly journals Evaluating the Feasibility and Acceptability of a Mobile Health–Based Female Community Health Volunteer Program for Hypertension Control in Rural Nepal: Cross-Sectional Study

10.2196/15419 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. e15419 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhao Ni ◽  
Namratha Atluri ◽  
Ryan J Shaw ◽  
Jingru Tan ◽  
Kinza Khan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Community Health ◽  
Volunteer Program ◽  
Health Volunteer ◽  
Community Health Volunteers ◽  
Female Community ◽  
Community Health Volunteer ◽  
Female Community Health Volunteers ◽  
Rural Nepal

Background Hypertension is a major modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the world’s leading cause of death. The prevalence of hypertension is disproportionately higher in South Asian countries than in other regions of the world. Screening for hypertension in primary care settings remains a challenge in many South Asian countries, including Nepal. Nepal is located in the Himalayan Mountains region, posing significant geographical challenges for its rural citizens to access primary health care and service delivery. This barrier increases the costs and inconvenience for rural Nepalis to access hypertension screening and treatment. As a result, the prevalence of hypertension in Nepal tripled in the last 25 years to 22.4%-38.6%. Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population relies on female community health volunteers to link health centers and communities to provide basic health services. Over 50,000 of these volunteers in Nepal have received basic health care training and are assigned to take care of maternal and child health. Due to limited health care resources, adopting new methods to control hypertension is an urgent need in Nepal. Several recent studies in Nepal have recommended extending the role of female community health volunteers to include hypertension management through blood pressure monitoring and home-based education. Objective The goal of this study was to assess if a mobile health–based female community health volunteer approach of combining the traditional community health volunteer program with digital technologies would be feasible and acceptable in rural Nepal. Methods In this study, we recruited 17 female community health volunteers and extended their role from maternal and child health to hypertension management through screening blood pressures. Results All 17 female community health volunteers successfully measured 1113 rural Nepalis’ blood pressures, identified 169 hypertensive patients, and collected health behaviors data of the 169 hypertensive patients. Among the 169 patients, 70% of them had a mobile phone, and 92% were interested in receiving health-related information via a mobile phone. Among those who were interested in receiving information via a mobile phone, 84% preferred voice calls, and 7% and 1% preferred texting and apps, respectively. Conclusions Results from this study indicate that a digital health intervention that leverages feature-phones combined with female community health volunteers may be an acceptable and pragmatic way to implement an evidence-based program to reduce hypertension in rural Nepal.

scholarly journals Evaluating the Feasibility and Acceptability of a Mobile Health–Based Female Community Health Volunteer Program for Hypertension Control in Rural Nepal: Cross-Sectional Study (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhao Ni ◽  
Namratha Atluri ◽  
Ryan J Shaw ◽  
Jingru Tan ◽  
Kinza Khan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Community Health ◽  
Volunteer Program ◽  
Health Volunteer ◽  
Community Health Volunteers ◽  
Female Community ◽  
Community Health Volunteer ◽  
Female Community Health Volunteers ◽  
Rural Nepal

BACKGROUND Hypertension is a major modifiable risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the world’s leading cause of death. The prevalence of hypertension is disproportionately higher in South Asian countries than in other regions of the world. Screening for hypertension in primary care settings remains a challenge in many South Asian countries, including Nepal. Nepal is located in the Himalayan Mountains region, posing significant geographical challenges for its rural citizens to access primary health care and service delivery. This barrier increases the costs and inconvenience for rural Nepalis to access hypertension screening and treatment. As a result, the prevalence of hypertension in Nepal tripled in the last 25 years to 22.4%-38.6%. Nepal’s Ministry of Health and Population relies on female community health volunteers to link health centers and communities to provide basic health services. Over 50,000 of these volunteers in Nepal have received basic health care training and are assigned to take care of maternal and child health. Due to limited health care resources, adopting new methods to control hypertension is an urgent need in Nepal. Several recent studies in Nepal have recommended extending the role of female community health volunteers to include hypertension management through blood pressure monitoring and home-based education. OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to assess if a mobile health–based female community health volunteer approach of combining the traditional community health volunteer program with digital technologies would be feasible and acceptable in rural Nepa METHODS In this study, we recruited 17 female community health volunteers and extended their role from maternal and child health to hypertension management through screening blood pressures. RESULTS All 17 female community health volunteers successfully measured 1113 rural Nepalis’ blood pressures, identified 169 hypertensive patients, and collected health behaviors data of the 169 hypertensive patients. Among the 169 patients, 70% of them had a mobile phone, and 92% were interested in receiving health-related information via a mobile phone. Among those who were interested in receiving information via a mobile phone, 84% preferred voice calls, and 7% and 1% preferred texting and apps, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Results from this study indicate that a digital health intervention that leverages feature-phones combined with female community health volunteers may be an acceptable and pragmatic way to implement an evidence-based program to reduce hypertension in rural Nepal.

scholarly journals Pemberdayaan Masyarakat melalui Pelatihan Komunikasi Efektif bagi Kader Posyandu

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 167-174
Author(s):  
Ngatoiatu Rohmani ◽  
Dewi Utari
Keyword(s):  
Health Promotion ◽  
Community Health ◽  
Effective Communication ◽  
Community Empowerment ◽  
Communication Training ◽  
Health Development ◽  
Good Communication ◽  
Community Health Volunteers ◽  
Communication Techniques ◽  
Community Health Volunteer

COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT TROUGH EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION TRAINING FOR COMMUNITY HEALTH VOLUNTEER (CADRE) OF POSYANDU. Community participation for creating Indonesia’s health development is necessary. One of manifestation of community empowerment is through Posyandu activities that are managed by community health volunteers (cadre) with the aim of providing facilities to the public in obtaining basic health services as a promotive and preventive health strategy in community. Cadres as the driving agent need to be equipped with health promotion skills as an attempt to create national health development optimally. The purpose of this community service is to provide knowledge of effective communication, and to introduce of communication media for promoting of health information. The methods of conducting communication training include: survey activities, communication training, preparing health promotion media and evaluation. The results of the training showed that participants had good communication skills, participants were able to practice effective communication techniques and realized the importance of the media to promote Posyandu activities.

scholarly journals Community- based Active Tuberculosis Case Finding in Pastoralist Communities of North-Eastern Uganda

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Guma Isaac ◽  
Emuron John Robert ◽  
Namugambe Swabrah ◽  
Nabirye Gloria ◽  
Philip Denis Okungura ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Nursing Students ◽  
Community Health ◽  
Community Health Workers ◽  
Health Workers ◽  
Case Finding ◽  
Case Detection ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Pastoralist Communities ◽  
Symptom Screening ◽  
Pastoralist Community

Background: Given the global urgency to improve tuberculosis (TB) case detection, a renewed interest in active case finding (ACF) has risen. Missed TB cases pose a serious threat as they continue to fuel TB transmission in the community. We aimed to assess the feasibility of community based ACF for TB among people living in a pastoralist community in Uganda and determine its impact on case detection and treatment uptake. Methods: Between April and May 2019, four third year medical and nursing students placed at Moroto Regional Referral for community orientation worked together with community health workers to conduct a door-to-door survey for TB in pastoralist communities of Nadunget Sub County, Moroto district. The community health workers and the Medical/Nursing students performed symptom screening, collected sputum and facilitated specimen transport to the laboratory. Gene Xpert MTB/RIF assay was performed at the regional referral Hospital for all sputum samples. The community health workers were tasked to follow up on all those clients whose samples turned out to be positive so that they could start treatment as soon as possible. All presumptive cases with negative sputum results were referred to the TB clinic for further evaluation. Results: In one month, we screened 385 individuals and identified 143 aged above 15 years with symptoms suggestive of TB. Among the presumptive cases, 132 (92%) reported a cough of more than two weeks and we were able to obtain sputum samples from 84(58.7%) participants. We diagnosed 11, including 8 bacteriologically confirmed TB cases using Gene Xpert and there was no multidrug resistant case identified. The median time from sputum collection to notification of the positive result was 3 days. All the positive cases were followed up and initiated on treatment. Conclusion: The findings from our study suggest that in a pastoralist community, ACF for TB using a sensitive symptom screen followed by Gene Xpert contributed to improved case detection of TB, shortening the turnaround time hence timely initiation of patients on TB treatment.

scholarly journals Contribution of community health volunteers in facilitating mobilization for nutritional screening among adolescents (10-19 years) residing in urban Puducherry, India – an operational research study

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (9) ◽  
pp. 4506
Author(s):  
Sathish Rajaa ◽  
Swaroop K. Sahu ◽  
Mahalakshmy Thulasingam
Keyword(s):  
Community Health ◽  
Operational Research ◽  
Research Study ◽  
Health Centre ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Adolescent Nutrition ◽  
Community Health Volunteers ◽  
Health Clinics ◽  
Field Practice ◽  
And Training

Background: Many countries have experimented with community health volunteers (CHVs) to expand their health systems. Adolescents represent 20% of India's population and serve as a vital resource in transforming its social and economic fortunes. Thus, we aimed at evaluating the contribution of CHVs in mobilizing adolescents for the adolescent health clinics (focusing on adolescent nutrition and anaemia) in a selected primary health centre (PHC) of Puducherry.Methods: A community-based operational research study was conducted in the urban field practice area of JIPMER, Puducherry. Around 5-6 volunteers were selected from each of the 13 anganwadis functioning under the PHC. The volunteers were interviewed before enrolment for willingness. About four batches of sensitization and training sessions were conducted to provide necessary training regarding the prioritized topic. CHVs were then given three months to mobilize the adolescents. This model was evaluated using the theoretical underpinning technique.Results: Of the total 85 CHVs suggested, around 65 (76.5%) showed willingness in rendering services. About 32 (49.2%) discontinued during the initial weeks of the intervention due to various reasons. The remaining CHVs reached 61 (17.2%) new adolescents and motivated around 48 (78.6%) individuals to visit the health center. All 48 were screened for malnutrition and anemia. About 25 (52%), 5 (10.2%) and 31 (64%) adolescents were diagnosed to have undernourishment (BMI<18.5), obesity (BMI>25) and anaemia (Hb<12) respectively.Conclusions: About half of the CHVs who volunteered remained till the end. The involved volunteers improved the adolescent coverage by tripling the number of adolescent beneficiaries.

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