Evaluation of “Team Development and Preparedness of Sub-district SRRT Network” under the Project “Development for Mechanisms to Support Sustainable and Enhanced Disease Control at District”, Department of Disease Control, 2011

Abstract

This descriptive study aimed to evaluate the project “Evaluation of “Team Development and Preparedness of Sub-district Surveillance and Rapid Response Team (SRRT) Network” under the Project “Development for Mechanisms to Support Sustainable and Enhanced Disease Control at District”, Department of Disease Control (DDC), 2011 by applying CIPP Model as an evaluation tool. Data for project evaluation were obtained from reviews of all related documents between 2005 and 2011. Focus group was conducted among personnel of the “Supporting Networks” Section, Bureau of Epidemiology, DDC who involved with the project implementation. Self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data from personnel in the 2,775 Health Promotion Hospitals by using Multi-stage sampling technique. A total of 652 respondents who worked for 110 sub-district SRRTs in 29 provinces, located in all 12 Offices of Disease Prevention and Control returned questionnaires.
The analyses revealed that the context of this project is relevant and supportive to the government policy in term of leveraging the Health Centers to be Sub-district Health Promoting Hospital required establishing Sub-district SRRT. Meanwhile it also strengthened the capacity of District Surveillance and Rapid Response Team following the development of Event-based surveillance. A strength of this system is involvement of local administration and community leaders. For input and process evaluation, the Department of Disease Control highly supports the project by providing 17,410,000 Baht to support both central and provincial activities, including 6,960,000 Baht for central units and 10,450,000 Baht for provinces to organize and build the capacity of the sub-district SRRTs. Finally 2,775 sub-district SRRTs were trained as set in the target number. Supervision visits for process monitoring were conducted in 18 provinces.
The data obtained from 652 respondents showed 72.7% received training while 27.3% did not. The reason that they missed the training is no invitation letter. Moreover, 54.2% gave the reason that it is not a task under their responsibility. Trained personnel have more confidence than those who never been trained with statistical significance. Odds Ratio=5.32, 95% Confidence Interval=2.97, 9.95) High percentage (90.6%) of the respondents understand the concept of “3-quick”, i.e., quick recognition, quick reporting, quick control. Regarding usefulness of the training manual, 53.7% and 29.3% reported that the manual was highly useful and moderately useful, respectively.
The results from this initial evaluation suggest that the Department of Disease Control should conduct another appropriate evaluation during and after the implementation of Sub-district SRRTs. Findings from real situation can be used to improve in the process of development and training the rest of sub-district SRRTs.