Educating Anganwadi Workers to Enhance the Mother’s Knowledge and Awareness about Children Eye Health

Background: Blindness, visual impairment, and other eye problems in children are some of India’s major public health issues. In a state-operated integrated child development scheme (ICDS), the government engaged the Anganwadi workers and helpers. There is the advantage of integrating eye health within community health as active engagement of these local community workers spreads and also promotes an increase in the uptake of eye services.

Purpose: The study intended to train Anganwadi workers working within the ICDS with knowledge about children’s eye health. The study also aimed to reach mothers or other primary caregivers of children and pro-vide them with knowledge to increase awareness about children’s eye health using the network of Anganwadi workers.

Methods: A questionnaire-based study was undertaken to assess the cur-rent knowledge and awareness about children’s eye health among An-ganwadi workers and in randomly selected mothers and primary caregiv-ers of children from two blocks of the Saran District, Bihar, India. Com-prehensive training has been provided to Anganwadi workers through a validated training module which follows the structure of ICDS training modules, and each participant is asked to share the knowledge and edu-cate mothers or primary caregivers in their catchment area. After three months of imparted training, the mother’s or primary caregivers’ knowledge and awareness were assessed through a validated question-naire, and the results were compared.

Results: A total of 274 Anganwadi workers participated in the interven-tional program, and 273 (99.6%) agreed that the training about” children’s eye health” was helpful to them. Furthermore, 230 mothers participated in the study, and 222 (96.5%) said that they had increased knowledge and awareness about children’s eye health from Anganwadi workers.

Conclusions: A significant improvement was found in the knowledge and awareness of mothers or primary caregivers about children’s eye health as Anganawdi workers had educated them and made them aware of it. Edu-cating Anganawdi workers has a positive impact on spreading awareness in rural areas.