Thermal Protection of Neonate

Warmth is one of the basic needs of a newborn baby. It is critical to the baby's survival and well being. Newborns body is not able to adjust itself, if environmental temperature changes which will results in the alteration of the newborns body temperature either it may be hypothermia or hyperthermia. The Department of Pediatric&Obstetrics of Indira Gandhi medical college, Shimla, report shown that about 3.4% perinatal deaths by hypothermia and At birth Hypothermia (6.3%) contributes 4^th rank in causes of neonatal deaths.

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of Nurse Intervention Programme on knowledge, attitude and practice regarding thermal protection of neonates among ASHA workers.

Methods: In order to achieve the objectives of the study, a Pre-experimental, i.e., one group pre-test post-test research design with a evaluative approach was adopted. Non probability purposive sampling technique was used to collect the data from the ASHA workers by using structured questionnaire.

Results: Revealed that 73.34% of the samples were in the age group of 25-30 years. 67% of were studied up to secondary education. Majorities (57%) were from Hindu religion and 77% belongs to nuclear family. Most (80%) of them were married. Majority (60%) of ASHA workers were having two children. Most of them (53.33%) had Rs. <6000 as their family's monthly income. And (57%) of the study samples were having 3-4 years of experience after completion of ASHA training. Many (50%) of the participants had brought pregnant women to hospital for delivery. 40% of ASHA workers have taken care <20 number of postnatal mothers and newborns. The analysis of mean, SD and mean percentage of knowledge, attitude and practice scores in pre-test and post-test revealed that the total mean knowledge score increased by 26.08% with mean ±SD of 6.7±1.69, the total mean attitude score increased by 11.6% with mean ±SD of 9.3±0.96 and the total mean practice score increased by 17.57% with mean ±SD of 7.36±2.24 after the administration of NIP. Paired't' test was used to analyse the difference between the pre-test and post-test knowledge, attitude and practice scores of the ASHA workers. The difference of knowledge (t₂₉ = 14.79 at p<0.001), attitude (t₂₉ = 9.18 at p<0.001) and practice (t29 =6.85 at p<0.001) scores was found to be highly significant. A significant increase was observed in knowledge, attitude and practice scores of the ASHA workers following the administration of nurse intervention programme on thermal protection of neonate. Findings revealed that the nurse intervention programme was effective on thermal protection of neonate. There was no significant association with other demographic variables like Age in year, Educational status of ASHA worker, Religion, Number of children, Income of family (monthly), Number of labour women brought to hospital for delivery ASHA workers, source of information regarding thermal protection of neonate among ASHA worker.