OPTIMIZING POSYANDU LANSIA AS A DISASTER PREPAREDNESS EDUCATION MEDIA THROUGH A PARTICIPATORY APPROACH: TRAINING FOR HEALTH CADRES AT PUSKESMAS BELIMBING, PADANG CITY

Abstrak

ABSTRACT 

Older adults are a vulnerable group who face a higher risk of injury and mortality during disasters due to limited mobility, sensory decline, and frequent comorbidities. Posyandu Lansia, an existing community-based health service that meets routinely, holds strong potential to be optimized as a channel for disaster preparedness education, yet its activities have so far focused only on routine health checks. This community service activity aimed to strengthen the capacity of Posyandu Lansia health cadres as disaster preparedness educators for older adults through a participatory approach. The activity involved 16 health cadres from Posyandu Lansia in the working area of Puskesmas Belimbing, Padang City (total sampling), using a pre-experimental one-group pretest-posttest design. The intervention consisted of a participatory needs assessment, joint development of a disaster preparedness education module, training on basic disaster concepts, evacuation routes, and emergency preparedness kits, and a simple simulation exercise. Data were collected using a knowledge questionnaire administered before and after the intervention and analyzed descriptively and with a paired-sample test. The results showed a significant increase in cadres’ knowledge scores from pretest (65.2±8.8) to posttest (82.7±6.9), a mean difference of 17.5 points (26.8% increase, p=0.001), indicating that the participatory training was effective in improving cadre readiness to deliver disaster preparedness education. A printed education module was also produced as a direct output of this activity and is being prepared for copyright (HKI) registration so that it can be formally recognized and replicated by other Posyandu Lansia.

Keywords: Disaster Preparedness, Health Cadre, Participatory Education, Posyandu Lansia, Community Service