Role and acceptability of traditional birth attendants (DAIs) in a rural community in South India.

Thilakavathy Subramanian; Niruparani Charles; Rani Balasubramanian; Sundaram, V.; Sudha Ganapathy; Daisy Dharmaraj.

Indian Journal of Preventive Social Medicine; 1996; 27; 109-116.

Dais are the traditional birth attendants, conducting deliveries at home in the majority of villages in India. A study was planned to find out the feasibility of utilising the services of the dais in case-finding in Tuberculosis (TB) and for drug delivery to diagnosed patients. As a preliminary step, a survey was done with a view to find out the role and acceptability of the dais by the community in 5% of households in randomly selected 24 of the 48 villages in Sriperumbudur Taluk in Tamil Nadu, where a voluntary organisation, "PREPARE" was delivering primary health care through dais. A total of 466 individuals, either the head of the household or any other responsible person available, were interviewed to find out the role and acceptability of the dais by the community. The salient findings of this study are that 83% mentioned that the dais reside in their respective villages, hence the services of the dais were available at all times and 82% had stated that the services were useful to them.

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