Department of Radiation Oncology, Mangalore Institute of Oncology, Mangalore, Karnataka, India.
Department of Cancer Education and Awareness Cell, Mangalore Institute of Oncology, Mangalore, Karnataka, India.
J Cancer Res Ther. 2023 Oct 1;19(7):1803-1811. doi: 10.4103/jcrt.jcrt_2110_21. Epub 2023 Sep 21.
In India, the Accredited Social Health Activists (abbreviated as ASHA) are an important group of community health workers and are involved in initiating and maintaining health care programs in the rural communities they live. This study was conducted with a purpose to evaluate the effectiveness of a structured teaching module in improving knowledge on cancer cause, diagnosis, and treatment in the ASHA workers.
This was a cross-sectional pretest posttest study and was conducted from April 2017 to February 2020 with ASHA workers working in the various Primary Health Centers in Udupi and South Kanara districts of Karnataka and Kasargod district of Kerala in India after obtaining the permission from the medical officer in charge of the respective primary health centers. The participants were briefed about the study objective and also that confidentiality will be maintained. A validated investigator developed questionnaire consisting of 20 questions categorized into four domains (general, subject, diagnosis, and treatment aspects) was distributed to the willing volunteers before the start of the program. They were instructed to fill the pretest form before and posttest after the teaching program. Informed content was taken in a separate sheet and volunteers were informed not to write any personal or identification details. Resource persons with experience in cancer cause, diagnosis and treatment delivered the structured talk in the local language Kannada. The data collected from the filled questionnaires were subjected to frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation and appropriately subjected to Chi-square test or paired t-test. A P < 0.05 was considered statistically significant.
The demographic detail suggest that majority of the women were Hindus (79.3%), married (93.7%), between the age of 31-40 (46.7%) and had only matriculation as the highest education (68%). The analysis of the pretest administration collected before the start of teaching program indicates that most participants were aware of self-breast examination (79.74%) and that cancer is a disease as old as human civilization (70.26%), while only 8.82% were unaware of which is the leading type of cancer in rural women. The results analyzed from posttest indicate that the highest percentage change (323.96%) was observed for domain on treatment aspects followed by for general (64.03%), diagnosis (56.70%), and subject (36.42%) aspect and was significant (P < 0.001). The total mean values changed from 6.48 ± 2.01 in pretest to 11.81 ± 2.15 in posttest indicating an increase of 5.33 ± 1.91 and percentage change of 82.25% (P < 0.001). The results also showed that 60.8% had average, while 39.2% had good increment in the knowledge at the end of the program.
The observations of the current study indicate the usefulness of the structured teaching module in improving knowledge on cancer cause, diagnosis and treatment in the ASHA workers. It is proposed that with further training ASHA workers can be very useful in the propagation of cancer awareness and screening in the community they serve.
在印度，认证社会卫生活动家（简称 ASHA）是社区卫生工作者中的重要群体，参与发起和维持他们所居住的农村社区的医疗保健计划。本研究旨在评估结构化教学模块在提高 ASHA 工作人员对癌症病因、诊断和治疗知识方面的有效性。
这是一项横断面预-后测试研究，于 2017 年 4 月至 2020 年 2 月在印度卡纳塔克邦乌杜皮和南卡纳塔克地区以及喀拉拉邦卡萨拉戈德地区的各个初级保健中心进行，在获得各自初级保健中心的负责人许可后。向愿意参加的志愿者介绍了研究目的，并告知他们将保密。在项目开始前，向志愿者分发了一份由 20 个问题组成的、经过验证的调查员开发的问卷，分为四个领域（一般、主题、诊断和治疗方面）。他们被指示在教学计划前后填写预测试表格。在单独的工作表中记录了知情同意书，志愿者被告知不要写下任何个人或身份细节。具有癌症病因、诊断和治疗经验的资源人员用当地语言坎纳达语进行了结构化演讲。从填写的问卷中收集的数据经过频率、百分比、平均值和标准差处理，并适当进行了卡方检验或配对 t 检验。P<0.05 被认为具有统计学意义。
人口统计学细节表明，大多数女性是印度教徒（79.3%）、已婚（93.7%）、年龄在 31-40 岁之间（46.7%），最高教育程度为小学毕业（68%）。在开始教学计划前进行的预测试分析表明，大多数参与者都知道自我乳房检查（79.74%），并且癌症是一种与人类文明一样古老的疾病（70.26%），而只有 8.82%的人不知道农村妇女中哪种癌症是最常见的类型。从后测分析结果表明，治疗方面的百分比变化最高（323.96%），其次是一般方面（64.03%）、诊断方面（56.70%）和主题方面（36.42%），且具有统计学意义（P<0.001）。总平均值从预测试的 6.48±2.01 变为后测试的 11.81±2.15，表明增加了 5.33±1.91，百分比变化为 82.25%（P<0.001）。结果还表明，60.8%的人有平均增长，而 39.2%的人在课程结束时有良好的增长。
当前研究的观察结果表明，结构化教学模块在提高 ASHA 工作人员对癌症病因、诊断和治疗知识方面非常有用。建议通过进一步培训，ASHA 工作人员可以在他们所服务的社区中非常有用地宣传癌症意识和筛查。
