Quality of antenatal care services at public health facilities of Bahir-Dar special zone, Northwest Ethiopia

Abstract

BackgroundAntenatal care (ANC) is one of the evidence based interventions to decrease the probability of bad health outcomes for mothers and their newborns. Effectiveness of antenatal care, however, relies on the quality of care provided during each antenatal care visit. Hence this study attempted to assess the quality of antenatal care services at public health facilities of Bahir-Dar special zone, North Western Ethiopia.MethodsA facility based cross-sectional study employing both quantitative and qualitative methods was conducted from March to April 2010 in Bahir-Dar special zone, North Western Ethiopia. Quality of care was measured as a proportion of patients receiving recommended components of care. To measure the indicators, data was collected from 369 pregnant women who attended ANC clinics in eight public health facilities, during the data collection period. Data were collected through exit interviews with ANC attendees, observation during consultation, and in-depth interviews with health care providers.ResultsPregnant mothers attending ANC clinics were found to receive only part of recommended care components. Venereal Disease Research Laboratory (VDRL) test, blood group and Rhesus factor tests were done only for 73 (19.8%) and 133 (36.0%) of the women, respectively. Moreover 236 (64.0%) of the mothers missed the opportunity of receiving iron/folic acid supplement during their ANC visit. Three hundred fifty five (96.2%) of the women received tetanus toxoid vaccine. And only 226 (61.2%) of the women had their conjunctiva checked for anemia. Lack of reagents partly explained the problems observed in the provision of recommended care components.ConclusionAlmost half, 175 (47.7%) of the study women were not satisfied and a large proportion of mothers are missing opportunities to receive screening (like blood pressure and weight measurements) and preventive components of antenatal care (iron/folic acid supplementation). Therefore, efforts should be targeted to avoid missed opportunities by taking quality improvement measures including the fulfillment of all necessary resources.

Factors associated with the timing of antenatal clinic attendance among first-time mothers in rural southern Ghana

“…This study revealed that 57% of the pregnant women initiated ANC visit within the first trimester of gestation. This finding is higher than what was found in other studies in sub-Saharan Africa [27][28][29][30] but lower than what is recommended by WHO [3,31]. This divergence could be due to the economic, socio-cultural and timing differences between the studies and among the study population as suggested in other studies [32,33].…”

Variation in quality of primary-care services in Kenya, Malawi, Namibia, Rwanda, Senegal, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania

“…Some studies have pointed to quality deficits in the delivery of basic maternal and child-health services. [11][12][13][14] However, unlike for coverage, there is no systematic examination of health-care quality that would permit benchmarking and tracking of progress over time. This is increasingly important as there is renewed interest in strengthening the role of integrated primary care in countries where investments have predominantly targeted communicable diseases.…”

Sampling for Patient Exit Interviews: Assessment of Methods Using Mathematical Derivation and Computer Simulations

“…). They are commonly used to assess patients’ satisfaction with the health care services received (Ejigu, Woldie, and Kifle ; Alonge et al. ; Asfaw et al.…”