Quality assurance for increasing growth monitoring and promotion (GMP) performance

Background Measuring body weight of under-five children is one of the Family Nutritional Improvement Program or Usaha Perbaikan Gizi Keluarga (UPGK) activities which was integrated in Integrated Health Post (Posyandu) activities. Growth monitoring and promotion (GMP) has been used as the main component of the health and nutritional program in several developing countries. Unfortunately, this activity did not run as expected. This study aimed to understand how quality assurance/ total quality management (QA/TQM) influence the performance of the GMP. Methods This 6 month operational research included 76 Posyandus in four subdistricts of Jogyakarta Province. The results of the Posyandus’s GMP score performance were used as a basis to improve the performance for the next consecutive months with QA system. Data were transformed as a score index. Student’s t- test was used to analyze the data. Results The quality assurance could increase the performance of GMP, which was done in Posyandus intervention group for 3 consecutive months. The baseline scores for both groups were 0.47±0.12 vs 0.42±0.17 (P=0.302), at the second month monitoring: 0.58±0.07 vs 0.42±0.16, for the intervention group (P