Monitoring and supervising public water systems correctly by health workers in rural areas can reduce the prevalence of waterborne diseases. Through educational interventions in Shahreza city, we are aiming to improve health workers' knowledge and increase their ability to apply what they have learned about monitoring and supervising rural water supply systems.
Materials and methods:
As a training course and as an intervention, Shahreza's health workers took part in this study.
We used a checklist of water supply systems completed by health workers to collect information about their level of knowledge, their pre-test results, and other relevant information about the current situation. After identifying the lack of knowledge of health workers, the topics the training course should cover were compiled. Following the training course, a post-test was administered to health workers, and checklists completed by the workers before and after the intervention were compared. Using SPSS22 software and paired t-tests and Wilcoxon tests, the data were analyzed, and the effects of the educational intervention measured.
Results: Before and after the educational intervention, the mean scores were 46.2±8.6 and 88.4±8.2, respectively, which indicated a significant difference (P value<0.001). The average risk percentage of all water supply systems decreased from 35.4±5.2 to 19.27±7.6% after the educational intervention, which indicates that the average risk percentage was significantly lower after the intervention than before the intervention (P value<0.001).
Conclusion: This study found that the educational interventions improved both the performance and knowledge of health workers, as well as reducing the risk associated with water supply systems in the rural area.