Impact of a family health care workers led educational intervention in improving women’s awareness on Vulvo-vaginal discharge: a non-randomized controlled trial

ABSTRACT

Family Health Care Worker (FHCW) led educational interventions to have the potential to educate and promote community health. Improvement of women’s knowledge of vulvovaginal discharge will promote health-seeking behaviours and prevent complications. This study was designed to evaluate the impact of an educational intervention (EI) on vulvovaginal discharge (VVD) for FHCWs in improving the knowledge and attitudes of females aged 18–49 years in selected communities in Sri Lanka. The EI was first implemented for the FHCWs. The effectiveness was assessed by a non-randomized controlled trial using an intervention group of n = 259 and a control group of n = 259 of females. Knowledge and attitudes on VVD were assessed using a pretested, validated interviewer-administered questionnaire at baseline and a posttest after six months of the intervention. The mean knowledge and attitude scores among the females in the intervention and control groups were similar at the baseline. At the post-test, the mean knowledge score among females in the intervention group was 44.96% (Standard Deviation (SD) ± 12.68) and the control group was 20.75% (SD ± 7.37) with a significant improvement (p < 0.001, Mean (M) = 23.68, 95.00% Confident Interval (CI) = 21.63 to 25.72) at the post-test. A significantly higher mean difference in attitudes scores (pre-test and post-test) was observed among the intervention group compared to the control group (p < 0.001, M = 2.90, 95.00% CI = 2.15 to 3.65). This highlights the importance of educational interventions to FHCW that in turn will enhance community health.

KEYWORDS:

• health education
• health behaviours
• vaginal discharge
• health personnel
• women’s health

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all the females for their participation in the study. Further, the authors thank the staff in the Maternal and Child Welfare Centers, CMC and all the research assistants, and data collectors for their support and invaluable assistance when conducting this study.

Authors’ contributions

Study design: IMPS, CSE, RC, PPR

Data collection: IMPS, Data analysis: IMPS, CSE, PPR,RCF

Manuscript writing: IMPS, CSE, PPR, RCF

Availability of data and material

Data will be available upon request from the corresponding author.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded university research grant from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka (Grant ASP/01/RE/MED/2016/53; University Research grant.