Effectiveness of health education in prevention of diarrhea among the refugess in Osire refugee camp, Namibia
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Date
2007
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Abstract
The Ministry of Health and Social Services in collaboration with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and its Implementing partners has extended Primary Health Care Services to Osire refugee camp and implemented the system jointly. Health education program was introduced and Community Health Promoters (CHPs) were selected from the refugee communities. The training curriculum for the training of CHPs on the prevention of diarrhea was developed and training was conducted in the year 2000
The researcher has observed that problems of diarrhea in Osire camp still exist despite the fact that CHPs were trained and were actually teaching the refugees skills to prevent diarrhea. Therefore this study was conducted to find the answer to the following question: How effective is health education in the prevention of diarrhea and what methods did CHPs used in delivering health education activities?
The Objectives of this study are:To determine the effectiveness of health education in preventing diarrhea in Osire refugee camp; To identify the methods used in delivering health education activities; To assess whether the refugees apply the health information given to them in preventing diarrheal disease
A quantitative research design was used and a descriptive strategy was used to obtain the data. The study was done in Osire refugee camp in Otjozondjupa region. The study population includes all households in Osire refugee camp and all CHPs who were available at the time of the study. Since the number of households was known, a stratified sampling was done and a total of 302 households were sampled
The research concluded that the majority of the respondents (64.0) fall in the age bracket of 15 - 34 years old while 41.0 had attended primary school education, 25.0 have never attended primary school. The majority of the respondents, (79.4) were taught about the basic factors to prevent diarrhea but on average, only 74.0 of the respondents were implementing what they were taught. The researcher concluded that health education was not effective in bringing required changes in refugee's health beliefs. Majority of households with private pit latrines (91.1) were found to be in a good state of cleanliness. About 6.6 of the households do not have pit latrines and some of the latrines are full and abandoned. The majority of the households (81.9) did not have children's faeces nearby. However, the majority of the households were found to have functional refuse pits.The researcher found that a significant number of CHPs indicated language was the major barrier to effective communication
Recommendations made include regular refresher training courses and in-service training on the methods used in teaching, and reviewing content of the training curriculum and the implementation strategy. A mass information campaign is recommended in order to reach more refugees with health education.
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Dairrhea, Diarrhea prevention and control, Health education