Five-year knowledge retention by volunteer primary health workers in Western Nigeria.

A volunteer primary health worker (PHW) must acquire a basic knowledge of preventive and curative medicine to approach his community with authority. Knowledge gained during training must be retained as a foundation for village level action. This study is a follow-up survey of knowledge among PHWs in a Western Nigerian town five years after training. The same end of course test was administered and results compared with age, sex, level of education and level of activity in PHC programming. The follow-up test scores showed an expected decrease in information retained. The only demographic factor consistently associated with knowledge after training and at follow-up was level of education. In addition level of PHC activity (e.g., attending PHW meetings, maintaining a village drug box) was associated with greater knowledge, but was also positively related to level of education. It is therefore recommended that PHC programs ideally recruit PHWs with vernacular literacy, but where this is not possible, extra effort must be put into close follow-up supervision of trainees.