Knowledge, attitude, and practices: assessing community based health care interventions in urban setting

Abstract

Background: The urban community based Maternal, and Child Health-MCH interventions were implemented in district one of Kabul city from 2013 to 2016.  The study intended to assess the changes in mothers’ knowledge, behaviors and practices toward proportions of birth spacing, Ante Natal Care-ANC visits, vaccinations and health care utilization to estimate interventions success.

Methods: To measure the success of implemented interventions, the data were collected from the intervention and the control districts.  The district two was selected as control as it had similar demographic characteristics to district one. Semi structured interviews were conducted with randomly selected 341 mothers in district one and 341 mothers from district two.

Results: The proportions of mothers who ever wished to utilize a contraceptive method, practiced birth spacing, knowledge about the date that the baby was expected to arrive, preference to give birth in a health facility and completion of all ANC visits were significantly higher in intervention district.

Additionally, the proportions of under five children who did not complete all scheduled routine vaccinations were lower in intervention district. It is likely, that implemented interventions have contributed to improve MCH knowledge, attitude and practices in intervention district.

Conclusions: The result of study imply that interventions contributed to the increase in mothers’ knowledge and attitude about birth spacing.  The interventions have also improved the level of knowledge about expected date of delivery and attitude to prefer giving birth in health facility.  While, there is still room for improvement as almost half eligible children in intervention district did not complete all scheduled vaccinations.