?A STUDY TO ASSESS THE EFFECT OF SELF INSTRUCTIONAL MODULE ON THE KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICES OF THE CARETAKERS RELATED TO ADHERENCE OF DIRECTLY OBSERVED TREATMENT SHORT COURSE AMONG THE CHILDREN SUFFERING FROM TUBERCULOSIS.?

Introduction: ?Miles to go before I sleep?, we still have miles to go before we will make this planet TB free. WHO with its ?STOP TB? The famous English poet Robert Frost Tuberculosis remains a worldwide public health problem despite the fact that the causative organism was discovered more than 100 years ago & highly effective drugs & vaccine are available making Tuberculosis a preventable & curable disease. Tuberculosis (TB) remains a major global health problem1 The latest estimates show that there were 8.6 million new TB cases in 2012 and 1.3 million TB deaths globally. India is one of the highest burden countries, accounting for more than 1/5th of the global incidence disease. Apart from being a major public health problem, the economic burden of TB in India is huge and is great loss in terms of lives, money and work hours.1 Materials and Methods: The quantitative approach & Pre-Experimental one group pre- test & post ? test design was used. As the research problem was aimed at enhancing Knowledge and Practices of the Caretakers related to adherence of Directly Observed Treatment Short Course among the children suffering from Tuberculosis. The sample for the study was n= 50 selected by using Probability simple random sampling technique. The pre-test was introduced to assess the knowledge and practices among the group of samples on the basis of pre-test result Self-Instructional Module was formulated and introduce to the sample after that the post-test was conducted. Results: The result were evaluated through the self structured questionnaire and self-reported observational checklist, The data was analyzed using a paired- t test to find out the significant difference between pre-test & post-test mean Knowledge & Practice scores and inferential statistic method ANOVA applied to evaluate the association between the Knowledge & Practice scores with the selected demographic variables. This proved that after administration of SIM, there was improvement in Knowledge & practices of samples from poor and average range and good range to excellent range which proves effectiveness of SIM. Conclusion: The results indicated the positive response to the Self Instructional Module for improvement in the Knowledge & Practices regarding selected aspects of adherence to DOTS. The Caretakers expressed that they were expecting more of such kind of information program with pictures, videos, demonstration and planned teaching.