Community Health Aides’ Knowledge about Cerebrovascular Disease Before and After Attending Training Program

ABSTRACT

There are no the best treatments for stroke, thus stroke prevention program is proper management. Communityhealth aides have a responsibility to distribute information about health care to the villager community. Theyshould obtain correct knowledge about stroke. This analytic study purposed to compare the community healthaides’ knowledge by replying questionnaire before, after training program, and 1 month follow up between July-August 2008 at Primary Care Unit of Tambon Thapo, Muang District, Phitsanulok Province. They learnt aboutdefinition of stroke, type of stroke, risk factors of stroke and manners to avoid stroke within 2 hours. After baselineassessment, they replied the questionnaire again immediately after training program and 1 month follow up.Wilcoxon singed-rank test was used to compare their knowledge with significant level at 0.05. At baseline, 66%of 53 participants had a high level knowledge. After training immediately and 1 month follow up the scores weresignificantly increased from baseline (p = 0.001) but decreased from after training immediately (p = 0.011). Thetraining program could enhance community health aides’ knowledge about stroke but not sustained. It is necessaryfor them to encourage utilization their knowledge regularly.