62.5% of Households Not Needing Posyandu becomes IPB’s Student Attention

 Bogor Agricultural University students did a positive deviance approach to improve the community's participation in revitalizing Posyandu (Integrated Service Post) in Bogor Regency. Positive deviance (PD) is one of the development approaches that aims to identify, optimize existing resources and provide solutions to solve community problems to improve the quality of life. Health problem is the main case, so special attention is needed to it.

Risda Monica and four colleagues as members of the Student Creativity Program in the field of Humanity Research (PKM-PSH) of are looking further into the problem of the community, especially posyandu. Posyandu is one form of Community-Based Health Efforts (UKMB) managed and organized from, by, for and with the community in building health and facilitate the public to obtain health services. According to the data from West Java Provincial Health Office in 2012, the total Posyandus in Bogor Regency was 4,492, but the number of active Posyandu is only 878 units (20 percent). This includes Posyandus that does not meet the standards.

In the study entitled "An Analysis with a Positive Deviance Approach in Posyandu of Sadeng Village as an Initiation of National Posyandu Revitalization Model". "The main problem of Posyandu is the lack of community participation, lack of competent human resources, and management and its cost, so it needs improvement (revitalization) for the effective goal of Posyandu," said Risda, who is also a student of Faculty of Human Ecology (Fema) IPB.

The positive deviance approach is expected to increase awareness and participation in revitalizing Posyandu in Bogor Regency. To increase in the human development index, this research was conducted on Posyandu Harapan I to X in Sadeng Village, Bogor.

  According to the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Indonesia (2012), the community's interest to come to Posyandu is influenced by infrastructure and facilities, cadre’s knowledge, officers’ capacity of monitoring growth and counseling, understanding of family and community about Posyandu and coaching.

The study also showed that approximately 27.3 percent of households use Posyandu as a community-based basic health service. While 62.5 percent of households did not use Posyandu because they did not need it, the rest gave other reasons not to use Posyandu. This low figure is an indicator that further improvement in the system is needed to make people more enthusiastic.

"We hope the community can improve the health quality of infants, toddlers and pregnant women. And it is expected the government can give inputs and solutions to problems related to the sustainability of Posyandu program," she said. (Mtd)