Effectiveness of an educational program to promote the safe use of pesticide among vegetable farmers in India : a quasi experimental study

Abstract

Objectives: 1)To provide information on baseline use and Health impacts of pesticides. 2) To provide information on knowledge, attitude, and Practice for pesticide. 3) To design a self- explanatory and affordable educational tool for vegetable farmers which can be used to train farmers on safe use of pesticides and finally 4) To assess change in KAP score and reduction in pesticide exposure symptoms to farmers and their families. Methods: After developing a simple educational tool, its effectiveness was assessed by measuring change in mean scores of knowledge, attitude, practice (KAP) and in-home pesticide safety behavior in households of farmers. Pictorial and simple to understand educational tool was provided and explained to enrolled farmers in intervention villages only. A face to face interview based on a structured questionnaire was conducted to collect quantitative data on knowledge, attitude and pesticide use practices by the vegetable farmers. In-addition, in-home inspection as a component of pesticide use behaviors was carried out in both the study groups. Improvement in KAP and in-home inspection scores in intervention group was compared to control group at 1 and 3 months post intervention, to demonstrate effectiveness of educational tool. Results: The study enrolled 100 study subjects from 4 villages, out of which a total of 90 subjects complete the study and were followed up to completion of study. 44 subjects completed study from intervention villages and 46 subjects completed all study follow up from control villages. Though there were no differences at baseline between study groups, however baseline knowledge score of study subjects was found to be lowest. Out of total knowledge questions, study participants gave correct response to 40%, on an average. This was followed by attitude and practice scores, which ranged between 40-60% of total score at baseline. For in-home assessment, we found an average of 66% correct safe pesticide practices being followed at home, which was similar in both intervention and control groups. The educational tool had effectively improved knowledge, attitude, and practice in the intervention group at follow-up 1 and follow-up 2 compare to mean score at baseline. For knowledge scores the educational tool had an overall effected increase of 59.9% from baseline score, for attitude the program had shown an increase of 7.10% from baseline score, for practice the program had effective increase of 9.29% from baseline score at follow-up 2 when compared with control group. Similarly, for in home assessment (behavior) the intervention had an effective increase of 30.69% from baseline score at follow-up 2 when compare with control group. In addition to effectiveness of the educational tool for increasing safe pesticide practice it also led to minimized pesticide exposure which decreased prevalence of health symptoms, in all five health symptoms categories assessed. Conclusion and discussion: A simple, affordable and self-explanatory pictorial educational tool can be effective in not only providing knowledge to farmers on safe use of pesticides but also has short to long term impact on improving pesticide use attitude, and behavior, which can help reduce health impact in the farming community. Successful outcome of this research should motivate pesticide manufacturers to undertake use of inexpensive educational tool to promote the safe use of pesticides and minimize occupational hazards to farmers.