A Study to Assess the Effectiveness of Planned Teaching Program on Awareness Regarding Environmental Sanitation among the Asha (Accredited Social Health Activist) Workers Working In Selected Rural Community Area

Background: Water, sanitation and waste management are important driving forces for community health in India. A clean environment, open defecation free areas, personal hygiene practices among the individuals, proper solid and liquid waste management, and availability of adequate safe drinking water determine the health of individuals as well as the community. Aim and Objective: A study was planned to assess awareness regarding environmental sanitation among the ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers working in selected rural community area. Material and method: A pre-experimental pre-test post-test design was used to assess the effectiveness of planned teaching program on the awareness of 30 ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) Workers selected by non-probability convenient sampling. Result: The analysis and interpretation revealed that the effectiveness of planned teaching programme as the post-test awareness score of the ASHA workers regarding environmental sanitation was significantly higher than the pre-test awareness score. Conclusion: Our result indicates that the planned teaching programme was an effective tool for improving the awareness regarding environmental sanitation among ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) Workers.


Introduction
"Much like charity begins at home, Sanitation and hygiene starts with You and Me." [1] "Sanitation generally refers to the provision of facilities and services for the safe disposal of human urine and faeces.The word 'sanitation' also refers to the maintenance of hygienic conditions, through services such as garbage collection and wastewater disposal."[2] Sanitation refers to public health conditions related to clean drinking water and treatment and disposal of human excreta and sewage.Preventing human contact with faeces is part of sanitation, as is hand washing with soap.Sanitation systems aim to protect human health by providing a clean environment that will stop the transmission of disease, especially through the faecal-oral route.For example, diarrhea a main cause of malnutrition and stunted growth in children, can be reduced through adequate sanitation.There are many other diseases which are easily transmitted in communities that have low levels of sanitation, such as ascariasis (a type of intestinal worm infection or helminthiasis), cholera, hepatitis, polio, schistosomiasis, and trachoma, to name just a few . [2]Water, sanitation and waste management are important driving forces for community health in India.

2.
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY A clean environment, open defecation free areas, personal hygiene practices among the individuals, proper solid and liquid waste management, and availability of adequate safe drinking water determine the health of individuals as well as the community.About 88% of child deaths are estimated to be related to diarrhoeal diseases (PFC -Progress for Children -5) and according to the World Health Report, 2005, CHERG (Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group, 17% of child mortality was due to diarrhoea.Major public health challenges like diarrhoea, cholera, malaria and dengue, polio, Hepatitis A and E, amoebic dysentery and other diseases are also caused due to unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation.Over 1 billion people or 15% of the world's total population practice open defecation.In India 68.84% of the population lives in rural areas. [3]

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
"A study to assess the effectiveness of planned teaching program on awareness regarding environmental sanitation among the ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers working in selected rural community area".

OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
i. To assess the existing awareness regarding environmental sanitation among the ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers working in selected rural community area.ii.To compare the pre-test and post-test on awareness regarding environmental sanitation among the ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers working in selected rural community area.iii.To assess the effectiveness of planned teaching program with selected demographic variables.

HYPOTHESIS  (H0) Null
Hypothesis: There will be no significant effect of planned teaching regarding awareness of environmental sanitation among ASHA workers. (H1) Research Hypothesis: There will be significant effect of planned teaching regarding awareness of environmental sanitation among ASHA workers.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
A quantitative-experimental approach was used to assess the effectiveness of planned teaching programme on awareness regarding environmental sanitation.A pre-experimental pre-test post-test design was used to assess the effectiveness of planned teaching program on the awareness of 30 subjects selected by non-probability convenient sampling.Structured questionnaire was used to assess awareness and planned teaching for providing information.

FIGURES AND TABLES:
Figure . 1 Shows that 46.60% of them were aged 41 years and above, 26.66% of them were aged 36-40 years whereas 16.66% were aged of 31-35 years 10% were aged in 25-30 years.  . 1 Shows that maximum 63.33% ASHA workers have completed their secondary education and minimum 6.67% has completed their primary education likewise 30% has completed their higher secondary education.

Figure. 2 Figure 3 .
Figure.2Shows that majority 76.66% ASHA workers had average score, 20% had good score whereas minimum 3.34% had poor score in pretest.

Table 1 :
-Distribution of subject according to education.

Table 2 :
Effectiveness of planned teaching program

Table . 2
shows that ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) workers pretest mean awareness score was 10.37 and in posttest mean awareness score was 19.03.The first objective of the study was to assess the pre-test awareness score of ASHA workers regarding environmental sanitation.The findings reveal that 3.34% (01) subject has poor knowledge whereas 76.66% (23) has average score and 20% (06) subjects have good score in pre-test regarding environmental sanitation.In post-test majority 97% ASHA Workers has good score.Thus, the present study revealed that the comparison between the pre-test mean awareness score 10.37 and posttest mean awareness score 19.03 among 30 subjects assigned to a group showed the difference to be statistically significant (p<0.05).Increased in awareness score thus establishes the effectiveness of planned teaching programme as the post-test awareness score of the ASHA workers regarding environmental sanitation was significantly higher than the pre-test awareness score.