Evaluation of Maternal and Child Health Promotion Project of Tha Pla Sub-district Administrative Organization, Tha Pla District, Uttaradit Province

Abstract

The study aims to evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the project implementation of the maternal and child health promotion project of Tha Pla Sub-district Administrative Organization, Tha Pla District, Uttaradit Province. A research is based on the mixed methodology. The evaluation framework is based on the Input-Output Model. The interview with structured questionnaire and the in-depth interview are applied to collect the data from twenty-one key informants, including target mothers, staff working for Tha Pla Hospital, and the National Health Security Office Committee operating in Tha Pla Sub-district Administrative Organization. The data are analyzed by qualitative and quantitative. The statistics for data analysis is performed by frequency and percentage.

The result reveals that the project is successful with the project implementation in the followings: for the project efficiency, the results show that the inputs applied to the project are well-prepared and appropriate; the project operation is good. In part of the project effectiveness, in the output evaluation, most of target mothers are found to have high levels of knowledge and understand about the importance of prenatal care. They are also found to gain a good quality of services from the program staff during pregnancy. Furthermore, the outcomes are found that the target mothers have no incidence of low birth weight less than 2,500. Most of them have rates of exclusively breastfeeding at least 6 months. Additionally, mothers and the program sponsors are found to be highly satisfied with the project outcomes. The problems and obstacles in project operation are as follows: 1) inadequacy and inappropriateness of the budgets and resources used in the implementation of the project; 2) the delayed project approval; 3) lack of consistency and insufficient operation budgets in inspecting the quality of materials, equipment, and locations; and 4) the difficulty in following up target mother process. The body of knowledge indicates that 1) the government projects often encounter budgetary problems. So, the government should allocate appropriate budgets to the project. 2) The government should support sustainable solutions for low birth weight problems.