Health Help lines Literacy among Rural & Urban Clients in Muzaffarnagar (India): An impact evaluation study

The data regarding knowledge and experiences of patients using health helplines available in India is lacking in literature, which makes it inevitable to research this area, as attempted by authors in this article.

This cross-sectional study was carried out in the field practice areas of RHTC & UHTC respectively; attached to a medical college in district Muzaffarnagar from July 1^st 2016 to March 31^st 2017. All age group of Clients in selected area were studied on 12 important toll free health helplines from a simple random sample of 450 Clients (225 each from RHTC & UHTC area). The data was analyzed by appropriate statistical test such as Chi-square test.

The % of health helplines literacy for >than 10 helplines known was 0.9% (RHTC area) and 0.4% (UHTC area) and <5 health helplines known were 83.1% (RHTC area) and 85.8% (UHTC area). The most useful health helpline as perceived by clients were HIV/AIDS in both RHTC area (77.3%) and UHTC area(77.1%). However there were no statistically significant differences (p>0.05) on 3 areas: (a) Utility of 5 Major National health programmes related helplines; (b) The knowledge of helplines among different type of clients & c) Awareness for helplines according to literacy levels.

There is an urgent need for focus on many National Health Programme related health help lines in terms of their advertisements at multiple levels and channels, if a sufficient dent needs to be made for improving health care system of India.