Influence Of Community Health Volunteers On Implementation Of Community Based Tuberculosis Care, In Bungoma County, Kenya

Abstract

Tuberculosis has re-emerged as a major public health problem in the world. World Health Organization estimate that a third of the world’s population is infected with tubercle bacillus with about nine million people progressing to active tuberculosis disease each year, two million of whom die of Tuberculosis disease. The main objective of this study is to establish the roles played by Community Health Volunteers in tuberculosis care, prevention and control in Bungoma County. It looks at their roles in the implementation of community based –Directly observed treatment short courses (Community based-Directly observed treatment short courses). Another area is defaulter identification and initiation of tracing and retrieving of patients, contact tracing and screening of all smear positive contacts and referral of suspect to health facility. The study also looked at Heath education given to the community through effective communication as part of advocacy, communication and social mobilization. The other area the researcher looked into is observation of patient take their medication (Directly observed therapy), referral and linkage of clients to facility and community, and documentation of tuberculosis information in the community tuberculosis tools. The study was undertaken in Bungoma County which has 240 community units with approximate 2400 community health volunteers. The study design included developing a questionnaire that administered after a population frame had been determined through cluster sampling method to get required sample size. The study was descriptive cross sectional. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire and was analyzed using computer data base SPSS, chi-square and presented using texts, pie charts, tables. The results helped to find out the roles played by Community Health Volunteers in implementation of community based directly observed treatment short courses indicating areas of success, failures, and challenges encountered. It provided a conclusion and recommendation that will be used to improve the services to the people of Bungoma.