A cross-sectional study to assess the mother’s perception on the service quality at Anganwadi centers under Integrated Child Development Service scheme in a field practice area of a tertiary care hospital

Background : Lack of proper nutrition during the first 1,000 days of a child’s life can result in stunted growth of the child, which is irreversible and associated with impaired cognitive ability and reduced school and work performance. ICDS scheme was started by the Government of India for improvement in maternal and child health through the Anganwadi workers (AWWs) and the focal point of delivery of services are the Anganwadi Centre (AWC). Objectives : The current study was conducted to assess the mother’s perception on the service quality at Anganwadi centres under integrated child development service scheme, to measure the gap between mother’s perceptions and expectations on service quality and to study the socio demographic profile of the study participants. Materials and methods : We carried out a cross sectional study in among 69 mothers at Anganwadi centres coming under field practice area of a tertiary care hospital between December 2020 to November 2021. We used Servqual questionnaire to measure mother’s perception regarding service quality at Anganwadi centre and their expectations. Results : The results showed that along the entire dimension, gap score came out to be negative which indicates service quality perceived by mothers is poor. The mean difference between Perception and Expectation scores was statistically significant (P value <0.05) in all dimensions. Conclusion : The negative gap shows that the expectations of mothers were beyond their perception of the current situation, so there is a lot of space to improve and reach client satisfaction and desired healthcare services.