• Indian J Med Res · Aug 2022

    Review

    Assessing the potential of self-help group women for improving reproductive health of women in a tribal block of Maharashtra, India.

    • Ragini Kulkarni, Sanjay Chauhan, Beena Joshi, Kusum Balsaraf, Ravindra Chaudhari, Gauri Donde, and Kavita Juneja.
    • Department of Operational Research, Indian Council of Medical Research-National Institute for Research in Reproductive and Child Health, Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
    • Indian J Med Res. 2022 Aug 1; 156 (2): 191197191-197.

    Background & ObjectivesIn the current health system, cash incentives are given to accredited social health activists for referring women to public health facilities for specific maternal and child health services, however many reproductive health problems are not included in these services. The objective of this study was to assess the impact of involvement of self-help groups (SHGs) in improving reproductive health seeking behaviour and service utilization by tribal women.MethodsAn experimental study was conducted in two tribal blocks of Nasik district (Kalvan and Surgana) in Maharashtra, India, over a period of 18 months. Interventions included training of SHG women and providing incentives to them for conducting health education sessions for reproductive age group women in the community and referring those with the requisite problems, to the health facilities. Pre- and post-intervention focus group discussions and in-depth interviews among SHG women were conducted. Training of service providers on diagnosis and treatment of reproductive morbidities was done, and health service utilization was assessed.ResultsSixty five per cent of the referred women with reproductive morbidities availed services at the public health facilities. A review of records of women seeking services for reproductive health problems showed that there was a significant improvement in the intent for seeking services in the study block as compared to the control block (χ[2]-9.06, P<0.002).Interpretation & ConclusionsThis study demonstrates the feasibility of utilizing the potential of SHGs for improving reproductive health seeking behaviour of the tribal women. The results suggest that this model could be scaled up to address the neglected reproductive health needs of women without burdening the existing human resources.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…