Effect of community mobilization on appropriate care seeking for pneumonia in Haripur, Pakistan

BACKGROUND: Appropriate and timely care seeking reduces mortality for childhood illnesses including pneumonia. Despite over 90 000 Lady Health Workers (LHWs) deployed in Pakistan, whose tasks included management of pneumonia, only 16% of care takers sought care from them for respiratory infections. As part of a community case management trial for childhood pneumonia, community mobilization interventions were implemented to improve care seeking from LHWs in Haripur district, Pakistan. The objective of the study was to increase the number of children receiving treatment for pneumonia and severe pneumonia by Lady Health Workers (LHWs) through community mobilization approaches for prompt recognition and care seeking in 2 to 59 month–old children. METHODS: To assess pneumonia care seeking practices, pre and post–intervention household surveys were conducted in 28 target Union Councils. Formative research to improve existing LHW training materials, job aids and other materials was carried out. Advocacy events were organized, LHWs and male health promoters were trained in community mobilization, non–functional women and male health committees were revitalized and LHWs and male health promoters conducted community awareness sessions. RESULTS: The community mobilization interventions were implemented from April 2008 – December 2009. Project and LHW program staff organized 113 sensitization meetings for opinion leaders, which were attended by 2262 males and 3288 females. The 511 trained LHWs organized 6132 community awareness sessions attended by 50 056 women and 511 male promoters conducted 523 sessions attended by 7845 males. In one year period, the number of LHWs treating pneumonia increased from 11 in April 2008 to 505 in March 2009. The care seeking from LHWs for suspected pneumonia increased from 0.7% in pre–intervention survey to 49.2% in post–intervention survey. CONCLUSION: The increase in care seeking from LHWs benefited the community through bringing inexpensive appropriate care closer to home and reducing burden on overstretched health facilities. The community mobilization interventions led to improvements in appropriate care seeking that would not have been achievable just by strengthening pneumonia case management skills of LHWs. In addition to strengthening skills, community mobilization and behavior change activities should also be included in community case management programmes.