The Role of Posyandu as Primary Health Care Services in Implementing Early Detection and Intervention for Autistic Children in Indonesia

Abstract

Autism is one of the most complex developmental disorder in children. In the developing country, Autism is a new paradigm, it causes various problems in autism service especially in early detection. It is caused by several factors that interconnected, such as the low understanding of society about autism, the low public awareness about the importance of early detection of autistic children, and the less prioritized attention from the government. Expanding the accessibility of autism services through primary health care is needed to overcome those problems. One of the primary health care most relatable to mother and children is the Maternal and Child Health Center, or in Indonesia it is called "Posyandu" which is an acronym means Integrated service post. The services in Posyandu is not run by professionals such doctor nor midwife. Posyandu is a service-based community and society handled by "posyandu cadres". The aim of this study is to find out how far the possibility of posyandu could provide services for autistic children. The subjects involved in this study were 120 posyandu cadres and 15 parents of autistic children. The research method used is a survey. The results show the following data: 92% of Posyandu cadres did not know how to do early detection of autistic children, 87% said they did not know how to handle autistic children, and 87% of Posyandu cadres felt they still need additional knowledge about autism. While 87% of parents feel that posyandu cadres are not involved in the early detection of their children. At the same time, 93% of parents still hope Posyandu could provide better services for their autistic children. This indicates that the primary health care has not fully played a role for autistic children yet, and there is a need to increase autism services access through posyandu cadres.