Performance Assessment of Accredited Social Health Activists in Eastern India: A Cross Sectional Study

Introduction: The GOI launched the National Rural Health Mission in 2005, under which many innovations have been introduced in the states to deliver healthcare services in an effective manner to provide accessible, accountable, affordable, effective and reliable primary health care, especially to the poor and vulnerable sections of the population. The actualization of the goal of NRHM depends on the functional efficacy of the ASHA as the grassroots health activist. The study was conducted to access the performance of ASHA workers in one of the selected blocks of eastern India. Methods: The study was carried out in 4 PHCs which were randomly selected from one of the blocks of Odisha. The ASHA workers were contacted in their respective PHCs during their monthly review meetings. Results: A total of 75 ASHA workers gave consent for the study.63 (84%) ASHAs had completed up to matriculation education and 42 (56%) were working for more than 3 years. Out of these 75 ASHAs, 59 (78.67%) received training within 6 months of the interview, while rest 16 (21.33%) were beyond 6 months.21.33% ASHA ranked very well in performance. Time - lapse since the last training was found to be significantly related to the performance of ASHAs (P = 0.000). Conclusion: The overall performance of ASHA?s was found to be satisfactory. As time since the last training received was found significant to the overall performance, regular training of ASHAs should be emphasized to further improve their performance.