Survey About The Status Of Primary Child Health Care In Chongqing

Objective To investigate the status of permanent staffs working at the maternal and child health institutions(MCHI) at different levels in Chongqing area.Methods During July and August 2009, the questionnaire surveys were conducted to 126 MCHI, including the age of the staffs, the professional titles and knowledge, the educational levels and so on. The descriptive statistical analyses of the original data were run by microsoft excel.Results1. Structure of working teams: 89.05% of the staffs were less than 50 years old; there were about two-thirds of them with professional school records, whereas only one third of them had bachelor or master degree; 78.58% of them with medium and junior professional titles; there were 35.77% of them had worked for more than 10 years.2. Professional knowledge: Growth charts were used in 85 MCHI (67.46%). Among them, WHO(54.12%) and national standard(40.00%) were used commonly,15.29% used the growth charts those not classified by gender. Growth charts on percentiles were used in 51.76% of the MCHI. There were only 7.06% of the MCHI with child health doctors who knew that growth charts could be used for 0~18-year-old children. Most of them used weight-for-age (W/A)(90.59%) and length/height-for-age (L/A)(76.47%)to monitor child growth; while only 36.47%,41.18% and 14.12% of them used head circumference-for-age (HC/A), weight-for-length/height (W/L), and body mass index-for-age(BMI/A)respectively. There were less than a third of the MCHI could use denver development screening test ( DDST ) to screening developmental disorders.3. Three routine tests: About two-thirds of the MCHI didn't order blood, urine and stool routine tests on well-baby checking.Conclusions1. The medical educational levels and professional titles were not optimal according to the require of Ministry of Health.2. As the suitable methods for monitoring child growth and development, growth charts and DDST were not applied in all department of child health care.3. Three routine tests were neglected by child health doctors.4. The information of this survey provides important guidance for improving the working quality of child health care.