Abstract:
Background: Postnatal care is a care given to the mother and her newborn baby immediately
after the birth of the placenta and for the first 42 days of life. It is very important in reducing
maternal as well as neonatal complications and deaths. Care should be based on relationships
between providers and mothers with compassion and empathy. Quality of care is central to
providing health services that respect, protect and fulfil our most basic human right to the highest
attainable standard of health. Improved quality of care plays a key factor in the increased use of
services. So, this evaluation intends to evaluate the postnatal care quality of government health
facilities in Sebata town, 2019.
Methods: Case study design involving both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods
conducted from March 18/2019 – April 18/2019 in Sebata town government health facilities. The
focus of evaluation was process evaluation that utilized the Donabedian model of structure,
process and outcome of health quality. The methods of data collection were client surveys, indepth interviews, inventory of resources, and observation of the postnatal care processes and
review of program documents. A total of 396 randomly selected client interviews and 16 direct
observations were conducted. All the health facilities were inventoried for the availability of
essential program resources and program documents were reviewed. Additionally, an in-depth
interview was conducted with a total of 13 purposefully selected key informants. Quantitative
data was gathered using a mobile data collection tool (CSPro program) and exported to SPSS 20
version for analysis. Qualitative data were analyzed using a thematic analysis technique.
Result: The overall quality of PNC service judged as 85.3% which was very good, and most of
this achievement was contributed by the compliance dimension. Availability, compliance and
mothers’ satisfaction dimensions achieved, 80%, 90%, and 83%, respectively. Shortage of
essential equipment for PNC service provision, absences of the national guidelines at PNC
service provision units, missing to take vital signs, the weight of mother and baby, and not
counselling the mother were affecting availability and compliance.
Conclusion: The overall quality of PNC service at the health facilities of Sebata town was very
good. All Availability, compliance and Client satisfaction dimensions achieved very well. We
recommend that more efforts have to be exerted on improving the availing of necessary
resources and maintaining providers’ compliance to enhance the status of PNC service.
