A STUDY TO ASSESS THE EFFECTIVENESS OF PLANNED TEACHING PROGRAMME ON LEVEL OF THE KNOWLEDGE REGARDING DOTS THERAPY AMONG THE ASHA WORKERS AT DEHRADUN DISTRICT

Tuberculosis is a specific infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The disease primarily affects the lungs and causes pulmonary tuberculosis. It can also affect other body parts such as intestine, meninges, bones and joints, lymph gland, skin and other body parts. DOTS remain central to the public health approach to tuberculosis control, which is now presented as Stop Tuberculosis Strategy. DOTS therapy is the strategy to ensure cure by providing the most effective medicine and confirming that it is taken. It is only strategy, which has been documented to be effective worldwide on a programme basis. ASHA workers are designated as DOTS providers, they go house to provide the DOTS medicines to the community peoples. The study aims to assess the effectiveness of planned teachinf programme on level of the knowledge regarding DOTS therapy among the ASHA workers. For this study a Pre-experimental design was selected with non-probability purposive sampling technique. Data was collected from 60 ASHA workers of Community Health Centre, Raipur, Dehradun, Uttarakhand. Tool used was a structured questionnaire regarding DOTS therapy. The tool consists of part-I socio-demographic variables and part-II consists of knowledge questionnaire. Collected data was analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. Tables and bar diagrams were used to depict the findings. The pre-test mean knowledge score of ASHA workers was 17.33, whereas the post-test mean knowledge score was 32.07. The difference between the pre-test and post-test mean knowledge score of ASHA workers regarding DOTS therapy was statistically significant. The t¬cal 36.597> ttab 1.671 was there, which shows that post-test knowledge score was statistically significant at p<.05 level of significance. Hence the research hypothesis H¬1 was accepted and H0 was rejected. There was no significant association between the demographic variables such as age, work place, type of family, educational qualification, source of information, working experience, family income per month and pre-test knowledge scores which was assessed with the use of chi-square. Hence null hypotheses H0 was accepted.