When ASHAs were introduced in NRHM in 2005, their primary aim was to visit homes of newborns as the first program in UP operated through the ASHAs was the Comprehensive Child Survival Program in 2008. Since then, home visits are an integral part of the work of ASHAs in all the primary health care programs operated by the NHM in UP. The current study explores some of the crucial variables of the home visit profile of the ASHAs in four districts of UP. Through this profile, the average number of home visits by ASHAs, record keeping of home visits by ASHAs, number of pregnant women registered by ASHAs in the last 3 months prior to the survey and the number of pregnant women that they covered through home visits in the last trimester of pregnancy of these registered pregnant women. The relevance of the study assumes significance as data on the details of home visits done by ASHAs are not available even in large scale surveys like National Family Health Survey 4 done in 2015-16. A total of four districts of Uttar Pradesh were selected purposively for the study and the data collection was conducted in the villages of the respective districts with the help of a pre-tested structured interview schedule with both close-ended and open-ended questions. In addition, in-depth interviews were also conducted amongst the ASHAs and a total 250 respondents had participated in the study. The average number of home visits by ASHAs in the 4 districts was in the range of 4-6 visits per day. Most of the ASHAs were not recording the home visits proceedings in the prescribed Village Health Index Register (VHIR) in all the 4 districts. The average number of pregnant women registered by ASHAs per month was also in the range of 4-6. Among these registered pregnant women, half of them were in their last trimester of pregnancy and not all of them were visited by all the ASHAs in the 4 districts. This reflected that home visits to the women in their last trimester of pregnancy did not receive optimal number of home visits.
