INTRODUCTION:

The first five years of life (and especially the first two years) have a great and lasting influence on the quality of life of a human being. The health, nutrition, education and development opportunities given to a child at this stage to a large extent determine his or her health and wellbeing for the entire lifetime. Treating a child is not like treating a miniature adult.

A major difference between child and adult is that children are minors and, in most jurisdictions, cannot make decisions for themselves. Children are an embodiment of our dreams and hopes for the future.

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS):¹ Scheme which was launched on 2^nd October 1975 in 33 community development blocks. The ICDS scheme was started in India with the objectives to improve the nutritional and health status of children in the age-group 0-6 years , to lay the foundation for proper psychological, physical and social development of the child , to reduce the incidence of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition and school dropout, to achieve effective co-ordination of policy and implementation amongst the various departments to promote child development, to enhance the capability of the mother to look after the normal health and nutritional needs of the child through proper nutrition and health education, to implement the major policy initiatives undertaken by the Ministry of Child Development in the recent past that Universalisation of ICDS i.e. the services of ICDS should reach every nook and corner of a settlement especially SC/ST/Minority populated areas. There are an estimated 10.53 lakh Anganwadi centers having 18 lakh mostly-female workers and helpers across the country. According to government figures, Anganwadis reach about 5.81 crore children .Since the children under six children spend more time in Anganwadi centers it is the responsibility of the Anganwadi Workers to take care and she should be able to provide care to the children.

According to WHO:²

Globally 6.6 million children under the age of five died in 2012.More than half of these early child deaths are due to conditions that could be prevented or treated with access to simple, affordable interventions.

According to UNICEF (2012):

New report, approximately 1.83 million children under five years of age die each year in India. The annual rate of decline in child mortality between 1990 and 2008 has been 2.25 per cent. One-third of all malnourished children live in India. 4. 48 per cent of children under five are stunted and 43 per cent are underweight in India.

According to Health Department, Government of Punjab (2012):³

Under-five mortality/1000 live births is 112 and percentage of Under nutrition (<5 years) is 34. Currently there are about four million malnourished children in Punjab. Over 34 percent of children under the age of five years are short for their age; over 10 percent are under weight for their age and over half anemic. Malnutrition is a major contributor to infant as per the 2015 target, India needs to reduce under-5 mortality to 39/1000.¹⁴

Madhavi H, Singh HK, Bendigiri (2009):⁴

conducted a cross sectional study in rural community of Gulbarga district in Karnataka on 3958 beneficiaries of Anganwadi services. The study finding revealed that 44.6% guardian of children of age 0-3 years and 45.66% guardian of children of age 3-6 years shows positive response towards services provided by the Anganwadi workers.

OBJECTIVES:

1. To assess the level of satisfaction regarding services provided by Anganwadi workers among beneficiaries of Anganwadi Centres.

2. To find out association between the level of satisfaction regarding services provided by Anganwadi workers among beneficiaries of Anganwadi centres with selected socio demographic variables.

ASSUMPTION:

The beneficiaries of Anganwadi Centres may be satisfied towards the services provided by Anganwadi worker.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

Research design:

A Non- Experimental, Descriptive Research Design will be adopted for this study.

Research setting:

The study will be conducted in selected Rural Areas of districts Jalandhar, Punjab.

Target population:

Population will be the beneficiaries of Anganwadi Centres who is having children from 0-6 years of age residing in selected rural areas of District Jalandhar, Punjab.

Sample and sampling technique:

A sample of present study will be primary caregiver who is having children from 0-6 years of age and taking services from Anganwadi centres, residing in selected rural areas of District Jalandhar, Punjab and Purposive sampling technique will be used in the study.

Tool and method of data collection:

SECTION A:

It consists of Socio-demographic variables.

SECTION B:

It consists of self structured three point Rating scale to assess the level of satisfaction regarding services provided by Anganwadi workers among beneficiaries of Anganwadi Centre.

Criteria for sample selection -Inclusion criteria:

· Who are having children from 0-6 years of age and taking services from Anganwadi Centre.

· Who are willing to participate in the study.

· Who can understand Punjabi and Hindi language.

Exclusion criteria:

The migrants who :

Postnatal mothers and Adolescent girls availing services from Anganwadi centre.

Variables:

· Research variable

· Level of Satisfaction

· Socio-Demographic variables

· Socio-Demographic variables of the study were Gender, Age, Religion, Education, Marital status, Occupation, family income and family type.

Description of tool:

The tool consists of two parts:-

Part-I Socio-Demographic Variables:

This part consists of 8 items for obtaining information about the sample’s Gender, Age, Education, Religion, Marital status, Occupation, Family income and Family type.

Part-II Self Structured Three point Rating Scale:

It consists of 30 questions. On the basis of response Satisfied contains 3 marks, Neutral contain 2 marks and Unsatisfied contain 1 mark. The maximum score was 90 and minimum score was 30.

Table-1 Criterion Measure:

There were 30 items to assess the. the Level of Satisfaction regarding Services provided by Anganwadi workers among Beneficiaries of Anganwadi Centers. Criterion measure used in the study was as follow:

Level of Satisfaction	Scores
Satisfied	71-90
Neutral	51-70
Unsatisfied	30-50

Maximum Score=90 Minimum Score=30

Pilot study:

Pilot study will be conducted on 10% of target population. Pilot study was started on 12-02-2015 and completed on 14-2-2015. It was conducted on 20 samples.

Reliability of Tool:

Reliability will be checked by Split-Half technique and calculated by Karl Pearson’s co-efficient of co-relation method. The reliability was calculated as 0.7, so tool was highly reliable.

Data Collection Procedure:

The data collection was carried out in the month of March, 2015. Data will be collected from 200 Beneficiaries. Purposive sampling technique was used to select sample. A written permission was taken from Sarpanch, Distt. Jalandhar, Punjab. Data will be collected by using Self Structured Three point Rating Scale to assess the satisfaction level of Beneficiaries of Anganwadi centre regarding services provided by the Anganwadi workers in the Anganwadi centre.

Ethical Consideration:

1. Written permission will be taken from Principal, S.G.L Nursing college, Semi Jalandhar.

2. Written permission will be taken from research ethical clearance committee of the college.

3. Written permission will be taken from the Sarpanch of the selected areas of district Jalandhar.

4. Written informed consent will be taken from each study sample.

5. Confidentiality of the study samples taken in the study will be maintained.

Plan for data analysis:

The data will be analyzed according to objectives of the study using description and inferential statistics such as frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, coefficient of correlation, ‘Z’ test, ANOVA test.

MAJOR FINDINGS:

· As per gender of beneficiaries, majority of respondents were females (79%) and (21%) were male.

· According to age ,maximum (47%) of beneficiaries belonged to age group of 30 and above years and minimum beneficiaries (4%) belonged to age group 18-21 years.

· As per religion maximum (61%) beneficiaries were Hindu and minimum (3%) belong to other category (jewish,balmiki).

· As per marital status more than half, (83%) were married beneficiaries, and minimum (6%) were unmarried.

· According to education majority of beneficiaries 59 (30%) were having middle school education and few of them 10 (5%) were having education up to higher secondary level.

· As per occupation more than half of the beneficiaries (78%) were unskilled and 45 (23%) were skilled.

· According to Family income , 69 (35%) of beneficiaries were having 4001-6000 monthly income and minimally remaining 31 (16%) have extended family

· Maximum, 119 (59.5%) beneficiaries had Neutral level of satisfaction, followed by 75 (37.5%) beneficiaries are satisfied and minimum 6 (3%) beneficiaries were unsatisfied regarding services provided by Anganwadi workers in the Anganwadi centres.

· The findings of the present study revealed that mean satisfaction of beneficiaries of Anganwadi centre is 66.82 (74.24%).

· According to Area wise analysis immunization area of the got first rank in satisfaction level of beneficiaries regarding services provided by Anganwadi workers with mean percentage of 92.96%, and least mean percentage and six rank got by health checkups services that is 53.54%.

· Satisfaction of beneficiaries was not significant with any of the socio-demographic variable other than the family type.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:

My study is purely dedicated to almighty god, my parents and my beloved brother.

REFERENCES:

1. E Rutherford Merrin. Access to health care and mortality of children under 5 years of age in the Gambia: a case–control study, http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/87/3/08-052175.

2. Gurukartick J, Ghorpade AG, Thamizharasi A, Dongre AR. Status of Growth Monitoring in Anganwadi Centres of a Primary Health Centre, Thirubhuvanai, Puducherry. Online J Health AlliedScs.2013;12(2):2, http://www.ojhas.org/issue 46/2013.

3. Kumbar .G. Mahadev. A study to assess the knowledge regarding community based programme malnutrition, Karnataka Bangalore. unpublished thesis of Department of Community Health Nursing, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, 2012

4. Prabhakar Ram, Dasgupta Aparajita (2014).A cross sectional study on client satisfaction of Anganwadi centres under integrated child development services (ICDS) Kolkata, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child.

Received on 27.08.2015 Modified on 16.09.2015

Int. J. Adv. Nur. Management 3(4): Oct. - Dec. 2015; Page 351-354

DOI: 10.5958/2454-2652.2015.00031.1