The Impact of Community Health Volunteers’ Service Delivery on Nutrition Outcomes of Households with Children 6-59 Months in Alego Usonga, Siaya County, Kenya

Abstract

Community Health Volunteers (CHVs) are used in nutrition service delivery and realizing Universal Health Coverage. Nevertheless, poor nutrition outcomes still exist in households under the care of CHVs, resulting in high rates of malnutrition and deaths. Guided by the Health Belief Model (HBM) the researcher established the relationship between the service delivery of CHVs and the nutrition outcomes of households with children aged 6-59 months in Alego Usonga Sub-County, Siaya County, Kenya. A cross-sectional study design was used. The sample size was determined using Krejcie and Morgan's formula to arrive at 353 participants. The researcher then used purposive, multi-stage, and systematic sampling strategies to reach the participants. Data was collected using structured questionnaires. The target population was households with children 6-59 months in Alego Usonga, Siaya County. SPSS software was used to analyze data, after that, the relationships were tested using Fisher’s Exact Test. Results: significant association between frequency of household visitation by CHVs and MDD, growth monitoring and promotion clinic attendance, deworming in the past six months, and availability of kitchen gardens in the households (p-values<0.05, FET); significant association between referral for immunization and FIC at 11 months (p-value 0.022, FET), referral for growth monitoring and promotion, and the number of children attending growth monitoring and promotion clinics (p-value 0.002, FET); significant association between counseling on complementary feeding and other foods consumed by children 6-23 months other than breast milk (p-value 0.047, FET), counseling on complementary feeding and MDD and MMF (p-values 0.014 & 0.003, respectively, FET), counseling on growth monitoring and promotion and attendance of growth monitoring and promotion clinics (p-value 0.001, FET), and counseling on the importance of kitchen garden and availability of kitchen gardens in the households (p-value 0.000, FET). Therefore, a significant relationship exists between household visitations, referrals, follow-ups, and counseling services conducted by CHVs, and the nutrition outcomes of households with children aged 6-59 months. Following these findings, the researcher recommends that the government continue supporting the CHVs by providing timely motivation and adequate resources. However, other experimental study designs with stronger statistical significance should be deployed to directly evaluate the CHVs’ service delivery and nutrition outcomes at the household level.