Abstract

This study sought to
determine the perceived impact of health education on community health
awareness among residents of Ezillo community in Ishielu local government of .
The variables studied were health promotion, preventive measures, treatment of
disorder awareness. The study adopted three specific purposes and three research
questions based on the variables to guide the investigation. The design was
descriptive survey design and the 399 respondents were sampled through the use
of multi-stage sampling method the strata stratification and convenience
sampling techniques, data were generated using structured questionnaire. The
result were analyzed using mean 2.5 as criterion mean. The study found that
health education enhanced health promotion awareness by encouraging eating healthy
diet, (3.45) positive changes in behaviour, (3.13) avoidance of drugs, (3.17) safe sex promotion. Findings also shows that health
education enhanced preventive measures and treatment disorders, awareness encouraging
exercise, counselling, immunization, and rehabilitations among residents of
Ezillo community in Ishielu local government of Ebonyi State. The study
concluded that promoted community health awareness among resident of Ezillo
community in Ishielu local government of
therefore the sudy recommended that government sustain the provision of health
educators who will continue to sensitize the resident of the community about
health and their well being.

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1     Background to the Study

Health education is the
process of educating people about health. Areas within this profession
encompass environmental health, physical health, mental health and spiritual
health. Health education can as well be said to be the principle by which individuals
and groups of people learn to behave in a manner conducive to the promotion,
maintenance or restoration of health. Health education is the process of
combining learning experiences designed to help individual and communities
improve their health, by increasing their knowledge or influencing their
attitudes.

According
to Stressbusters (2001), health education is one of the strategy of health
promotion and is focused on helping individuals learn and use health enhancing
skills. He further states that health education is also an effective tool that
helps improve health in developing nations. It does not only teaches prevention
and basic health knowledge but also conditions ideas that reshape everyday
habits of people with unhealthy lifestyles in developing countries.

    The
Joint Committee on Health Education and Promotion Terminology (2001), defined
health education as “any combination of planned learning experiences based on
sound theories that provide individuals, groups, and communities the
opportunity to acquire information and the skills needed to make quality health
decisions. The World Health Organization (2000) defined health education as
comprising of consciously constructed opportunities for learning, involving
some form of communication designed to improve health literacy, including
improving knowledge, and developing life skill which are conducive to
individual and community health. There are aspects of health education which
includes: family health education, personal health education, community health
education and many others.

Family
health education service is the process of educating members of a given family
about health. Personal health education is a planned program of learning through
which children and young people acquire the knowledge, understanding and skills
they need to manage their lives.

Community
health education is a theory driven process that promotes health and prevents
disease within certain target populations in the community. Community health
education according to World Health Organization (2004) is geared toward creating
health awareness down to the rural dwellers. This study is geared toward
establishing the importance of health education on community health awareness
among resident of Ezillo community in Ishielu local government area. Community
health is a field which concerns itself with the study and improvement of health
characteristics of biological communities. While the term community can broadly
be defined, community health tends to focus on geographical areas rather than
people with shared characteristics. The health characteristics of a community
are often examined using geographical information system (GIS) software and public
health data sets. Health is broadly defined as wellbeing which is generally influenced
by a wide away of socio-demographic characteristics, certain relevant variables
ranging from the proportion of residents of a given age group to the overall
life expectancy of the neighborhood, and community medical interventions
influence health of a community like Ezillo. They influence access to medical
care to public health communications campaigns (WHO, 2000, p. 2). Community
health may be studied within three broad categories which are: primary health
care, secondary health care and tertiary health care.

Primary
health care refers to intervention that focus on the individual or family such
as hand washing, immunization, circumcision among others. Secondary health care
service are provided by medical specialists and other professionals who
generally do not have first contact with patients, for example cardiologists,
urologists (
for Neurology,
London 2012). Tertiary health care on the other hand refers to those
interventions that take place in a hospital setting such as intravenous
rehydration or surgery (Johns Hopkins, 2004). There are components of community
health which includes; promotion of health, prevention of health problems,
treatment of disorders, and provision of rehabilitation, evaluation of health
care issues and community research and evidence based practice.

Health
promotion includes educational, social and environmental supports for
individual, organizational and community action. It seeks to activate local
organizations and groups or individuals to make changes in behavior or policies
that influences health (Wall, 2009). Prevention of health as the case of social
health, the need will surface at the three levels of prevention; primary
prevention, secondary prevention and tertiary prevention.

Primary
prevention activities for mental and social health could include personal
stress management strategies such as exercise and meditation, or school and
workplace educational classes to enhance the mental health of the people. A
secondary prevention strategy could include the staffing of a crisis hot line
by local organizations such as health department or mental health center (Brown,
2004). In the words of Stressburts (2001), tertiary prevention might take the
form of the local medical and mental health specialists and health care
facilities providing individual and group counselling and rehabilitation.

Treatment
of disorders varies, for personality disorders, it is diagnosed until the
individual is a young adult, often not until 20’s or even 30’s. Most
individuals with personality disorders lead normal lives and only seek
psychotherapeutic treatment during stress (Psych central, 1995). Childhood
disorders often labeled as developmental disorders or learning disorders, most
often occur and are diagnosed when the child is of school age (Psych central,
1995). Generally, treatment is best guided by a psychiatrist skilled in
treating health disorders (Mayo, 2010). You may have a treatment team that also
includes a psychologists, health workers and psychiatric nurse. Depending on
your needs, treatment may include; initial treatment, continued treatment,
substance abuse treatment, and hospitalization.

According
to Mayo (2010), initial treatment is when you start taking medications to balance
your moods right away. Once your symptoms are under control, you will work with
your doctor to find the best long term treatment. He further said that
continued treatment is a lifelong treatment, even during periods when you feel
better. Substance abuse treatment is when you have problems with alcohol or
drugs, you will also need substance abuse treatment. Hospitalization is when
you are behaving dangerously, you feel suicidal or you become detached from
reality (psychotic), then you will be admitted to the hospital.

Rehabilitation
embodies the entire continuation of care needed to help you regain your
independence after injury or illness (
institute, 2014). In the words of Banner (2013), rehabilitation often is a key
component of the healing process. A facility will be provided for patients with
orthopedic injuries and disorders, neurological disorders, spinal cord and
brain injuries and many others.

Evaluation
method of health care service seeks to provide an understanding of why an
improvement initiative has or has not worked and how it can be improved in the
future (Parry, etal 2013). In the words of
(2004), evaluating performance of health care programs operates in diverse
settings, identifying opportunities for improvement and understanding the needs
of both patients and providers.

Community
research and evidenced based practice has help in promoting community healthy life,
by preventing disease and injury, improving health and enhancing quality of
life (Graml, etal 2010). In the words
of Victoria (2000), evidence based practice usually refers to gathering
quantitative data upon which to base decisions about what constitutes effective
or efficient practice or what is sometimes called “best practice”. He further
argue that, when gathering evidence about practice concerning people in
communities which is often the case in the health sector, different evidence is
needed and consequently different methods will be used. Community based
research is based on a philosophy of participatory paradigm (Heron & Reson,
1997).

 The main objective of health awareness is to
provide health related knowledge to the people for preventing and curing
disease (Brown, 2010). There are some people who are completely irresponsible,
they do not know their responsibility as to taking care of themselves. This
people do not have any known disease but yet they cannot be considered healthy
(Wall, 2009, p.133). For providing health awareness, health education
programmes and promotion are organized that can help in promoting a healthy
community environment (Wall, 2009, p. 150)

The
situation of community health in Ezillo is such that needs urgent government
intervention. According to Mrs. Ukpai (health worker), they are several health
issues in Ezillo community, these are; maternal mortality rate, poor health
facilities, premature birth, malaria in pregnancy, poor sanitation, mentally
disorder and many others. Base on the current situation, there is need for
community health education in Ezillo which will dwell much on the pregnant
women and their babies to reduce the health related issues to its bearest
minimum.

The
success of community health programs depends on the transfer of information
from health professionals to the general public using one to one or one to many
approach. Educational and community based programs play a key role in
preventing disease and injury, improving health, enhancing quality of life
(Graml, 2010).

Health
status and related behaviors are determined by influences at multiple levels; “personal
organizational institution, environmental and policy”. Because significant and
dynamic interrelationship exist among these different levels of health determinants,
educational and community based programs are most likely to succeed in
improving health and wellness when they address influences at all levels and in
a variety of environment settings. According to Graml, Castillo, (2010),
educational and community based programs and strategies played an important
role in reaching healthy people in Ezillo community, over the next decades they
will continue to contribute to the improvements of health outcomes in the said
community area. This education and community based programs and strategies are
designed to reach people outside of traditional health care settings, these may
include; schools, worksites, village square, market, church, community meetings
and many others. Each settings provides opportunities to reach people using
existing social structures this maximizes impact and reduces the time and
resources necessary for program development and these can be achieved through
community health workers. Using nontraditional settings can help encourage informal
information sharing within communities through peer social interaction and
related mass media. Reaching out to people in different setting also allows for
greater tailoring of health information and education. Educational and
community based programs encourage and enhance health and wellness by educating
communities on topics as; chronic diseases, injury and violence prevention,
mental illness, unwanted pregnancy, substance abuse, mal-nutrition, and
physical inactivity.

It
is therefore for these reasons that the researcher embark on these study to determine
the perceived impact of health education in Ezillo community in creating
community health awareness.

1.2     Statement of the Problem

It
is generally accepted that health education is the profession of educating
people about health. Also it is viewed as any combination of planned learning
experiences based on sound theories that provides individuals the opportunity
to acquire information about health decisions and status. However health
education has been practiced in the urban areas over the years without bringing
it down to the rural communities, evidently it is clear that greater death rate
is traced from the rural domains because of people’s lack of health
sensitization and awareness (
of , , 2003).

Therefore,
the study embarked on to find out the extent to which people in Ezillo community
applies health education on related health issues and also identifying the
issues in community health.

1.3     Purpose of the Study

The
main purpose of this study was to identify the perceived impact of health
education in creating community health awareness among people of Ezillo community.
Specifically, the study intended to:

1.     Determine
the perceived impact of health education on health promotion awareness among
residents of Ezillo community.

2.     Determine
the perceived impact of health education on awareness of preventive measures of
health issues among residents of Ezillo community.

3.     Ascertain
perceived impact of health education on awareness of treating disorder methods
among residents of Ezillo community.

1.4     Significance of Study

This
research study is undertaken to buttress the impact of health education on community
health awareness among residents of Ezillo community. The study will be
beneficial to health policy makers, health workers in Ezillo community,
community members in Ezillo and the government.

This research work will be beneficial to the
community members in the sense that it will serve as a source of
information on how to improve quality of health care delivery services that
will enhance good standard of living, and make community members cope and
get on with their normal lives. Also this research will enable community
members gain knowledge and enlightenment on how to handle certain health
issues they may not have had a previous knowledge about, which will enable
them to strategize on how to combat the health issues facing the
community.

The health policy
makers will benefit from the findings of the study. It might help them to know
area of community health where health education intervention needs to be
intensified. Based on these, they can make policies to favor this area.

This research work will
be of great importance to the government on the need to put certain factors
into consideration, such as social and cultural factors of community
members in the administration of health services. This will help health
practitioners to better understand their patients when embarking on health
education, and provide improved forms of health care services in other to
enhance quality health condition. 

1.5     Scope of the Study

This
study is delimited to perceived impact of health education on community
awareness among residents of Ezillo community in Ishielu Local Government Area
of Ebonyi State.  The study covered the
impact of health education on promotion of awareness, preventive awareness and
treating disorder. The occupants of the community (male and female) formed the
subjects of the study.

1.6     Research Questions

Bearing
in mind the problem which the researcher intended to solve as well as the
purpose which the research study intended to achieve, the following research
questions were formulated to guide the study:

1.     What
is the perceived impact of health education on health promotion awareness among
residents of  Ezillo community?

2.     What
is the perceived impact of health education on awareness of preventive measures
of health issues among residents of Ezillo community?

3.     What
is perceived impact of health education on awareness of treating disorder
methods among residents of Ezillo community?