Assessment of the Role of Community Health Workers in Promoting the Rational Use of Medicines in Sheberghan City
Key words: Community health workers, CHWs, Health awareness, Health programs, Qara Darya, Rational use of medicines, Sheberghan
Enayatullah Hamidi
Abstract
Community health workers play a major and significant role in promoting the rational use of medicines. The main objective of this study was to examine whether community health workers have a substantial contribution in this regard. The study also explored the impact of their health awareness activities and the programs they implement on promoting rational medicine use. The statistical population consisted of the residents of Sheberghan city. Based on the standard deviation calculated from a pilot sample (0.56) and using Cochran’s formula, the sample size was determined to be 482 participants. A descriptive approach was employed, and the Binomial Test was used to assess the contributions of community health workers, their awareness activities, and health programs. The findings revealed that the observed proportions of contributions, awareness activities, and programs were significantly higher than the expected values, with differences of approximately 20%, 13%, and 18%, respectively. These differences were statistically significant (p < 0.05), indicating that community health workers play a meaningful and measurable role in promoting rational use of medicines. Overall, the results emphasize that community health workers can have a decisive effect on guiding the public toward rational medicine use, highlighting the importance of strengthening their awareness activities and programs to achieve sustainable improvements in community health.
