Understanding the Association Between Maternal Education and Use of Health Services in Ghana: Exploring the Role of Health Knowledge

Greenaway, Emily Smith; León, Juan; Baker, David P.

doi:10.1017/s0021932012000041

Cited by 99 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Women in our study exhibited low health literacy for interpreting and operationalizing ANC education even though more than half of the women completed primary education. Our qualitative findings support a recent quantitative study that examined the relationship among maternal education, health knowledge, and use of health services in Ghana (Greenaway, Leon, & Baker, ). Greenaway et al () showed that more years of maternal education increased women's understanding of health, and this comprehension of health led to increased use of maternal and child health services.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Examining Antenatal Health Literacy in Ghana

Lori

Dahlem

Ackah³

et al. 2014

J of Nursing Scholarship

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Purpose To explore Ghanaian pregnant women’s understanding and recognition of danger signs in pregnancy, birth preparedness and complication readiness, and their understanding of newborn care. Design An exploratory, qualitative study design was used. Methods Data were gathered through six focus group discussions with 68 pregnant women attending antenatal care at a busy urban hospital in Ghana. Qualitative and descriptive data were analyzed using SPSS version 21. Health literacy was used as the guiding framework to analyze the qualitative data. Data were analyzed in the content domains of (a) understanding and recognition of danger signs in pregnancy, (b) preparedness for childbirth, (c) understanding and recognition of danger signs in the newborn, and (d) appropriate and timely referral. Findings Women in this study identified danger signs of pregnancy and in the newborn, but had difficulty interpreting and operationalizing information they received during antenatal care visits, indicating that health education did not translate to appropriate health behaviors. Cultural beliefs in alternative medicine, lack of understanding, and prior negative encounters with healthcare professionals may have led to underutilization of professional midwives for delivery and health services. Conclusions Women in this study exhibited low health literacy by incorrectly interpreting and operationalizing health education received during antenatal care. With limited health literacy, pregnant women cannot fully comprehend the scope of services that a health system can provide for them and their families. Clinical Relevance Achieving the greatest impact with limited time in antenatal care is a challenge. Since antenatal care is widely available to pregnant women in Ghana, it is vital to reexamine the way antenatal education is delivered. Pregnant women must receive health information that is accurate and easy to understand in order to make informed health choices that will improve maternal and child health.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Examining Antenatal Health Literacy in Ghana

Lori

Dahlem

Ackah³

et al. 2014

J of Nursing Scholarship

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“…Mass media exposure (that ideally conveys some rudimentary information on health and health care) positively affects the use of reproductive health services among women in Bangladesh in the context of intimate partner violence [41]. In contrast, however, Greenaway and colleagues [76] showed that in Ghana, indicators for women’s access to mass media and media exposure were not associated with use of services.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthesizing qualitative and quantitative evidence on non-financial access barriers: implications for assessment at the district level

O’Connell

Bedford

Thiede³

et al. 2015

Int J Equity Health

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IntroductionA key element of the global drive to universal health coverage is ensuring access to needed health services for everyone, and to pursue this goal in an equitable way. This requires concerted efforts to reduce disparities in access through understanding and acting on barriers facing communities with the lowest utilisation levels. Financial barriers dominate the empirical literature on health service access. Unless the full range of access barriers are investigated, efforts to promote equitable access to health care are unlikely to succeed. This paper therefore focuses on exploring the nature and extent of non-financial access barriers.MethodsWe draw upon two structured literature reviews on barriers to access and utilization of maternal, newborn and child health services in Ghana, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Rwanda. One review analyses access barriers identified in published literature using qualitative research methods; the other in published literature using quantitative analysis of household survey data. We then synthesised the key qualitative and quantitative findings through a conjoint iterative analysis.ResultsFive dominant themes on non-financial access barriers were identified: ethnicity; religion; physical accessibility; decision-making, gender and autonomy; and knowledge, information and education. The analysis highlighted that non-financial factors pose considerable barriers to access, many of which relate to the acceptability dimension of access and are challenging to address. Another key finding is that quantitative research methods, while yielding important findings, are inadequate for understanding non-financial access barriers in sufficient detail to develop effective responses. Qualitative research is critical in filling this gap. The analysis also indicates that the nature of non-financial access barriers vary considerably, not only between countries but also between different communities within individual countries.ConclusionsTo adequately understand access barriers as a basis for developing effective strategies to address them, mixed-methods approaches are required. From an equity perspective, communities with the lowest utilisation levels should be prioritised and the access barriers specific to that community identified. It is, therefore, critical to develop approaches that can be used at the district level to diagnose and act upon access barriers if we are to pursue an equitable path to universal health coverage.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12939-015-0181-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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“…This fact was studied in Ghana revealed that mothers' duration of school education is strongly associated with health literacy 8 . The findings of another study done in Bangladesh showed that a low level of education on cholera among risky groups calls for supporting health education activities to increase their knowledge on cholera 9 , another study done on the old people in China revealed that candidates who finished high school or higher had 6, 4, and 3 times bigger odds of possessing adequate health literacy than those who .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health Literacy among Women with Different Educational States in Baghdad

Al-Nema

Ahmed

Al-Tukmagi

2017

AJPRHC

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Health literacy is an important method used by the authorities to strengthen the health system. The aim of this study is to assess the knowledge of some basic health principles among women of different educational states. This is a crosssectional study, performed from December 2014 until January 2016, Baghdad. All candidates were: females > 18 years, neither medical staff nor students. They were divided into two groups: educated and uneducated. The sample included 213 women, there were 112 educated and 101 uneducated women. Regarding educated group, accurate answers regarding route of transmission of typhoid fever was 73.2% in educated subjects vs. 49.5% in uneducated subjects. Main source of information for both groups was personal experience, but internet was used more by educated 59 (52.7%) whereas television by the uneducated 48 (47.5%). In conclusion, educated women had better health literacy than uneducated. Pharmacists played an impotent role in health literacy in the uneducated. Activities of the Ministry of Health were influent on the educated women.

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Understanding the Association Between Maternal Education and Use of Health Services in Ghana: Exploring the Role of Health Knowledge

Cited by 99 publications

References 42 publications

Examining Antenatal Health Literacy in Ghana

Examining Antenatal Health Literacy in Ghana

Synthesizing qualitative and quantitative evidence on non-financial access barriers: implications for assessment at the district level

Health Literacy among Women with Different Educational States in Baghdad

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