Quality of Antenatal Care Services in Public Health Facilities of Bahir-Dar Special Zone, North West Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Antenatal care helps to ensure healthy outcomes to women & newborns. However, there are many missed opportunities for antenatal care. Mothers and children may face risks because of limited or late-term ANC visits, and low-quality of care during visits. However little is known about quality of ANC in Amhara region. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the quality of antenatal care services in public health facilities of Bahir-Dar special zone, North Western Ethiopia. Methods: A facility based cross-sectional study employing both quantitative and qualitative method was conducted from March to April 2010 in Bahir-Dar special zone, North Western Ethiopia. A total of 369 study subjects following their ANC visits in eight public health facilities of the study area during the data collection period were included in this study. To achieve the desired sample size for the study, the number of pregnant women selected from each centre was determined by proportional to size allocation and individual study subjects at each facility was selected by systematic random sampling with k=3. Data was collected by interviewer administered questionnaire and it was cleaned, coded & fed to SPSS version 16.0. Univariate, bivariate and multiple logistic regressions were done to determine the magnitude of variables, association and factors affecting quality of antenatal care, respectively. Result: A total of 369 ANC clients were included in the study. Less than half (47.7%) of the women, in the study were satisfied with the ANC services they received. Venereal Disease Research Laboratory, blood group & Rhesus factor tests were done for only 73(19.8%) and 133(36.0%) of women, respectively. TT vaccine was for 355 (96.2%) of women given; while the conjunctiva of 226(61.2%) respondents was checked for anemia. On the other hand, 236 (64.0%) of the women have not received iron/folic acid. On inventory, Uristix for detection of glucose & protein in urine, VDRL and hemoglobin measurements were available only in two health facilities and iron sulfate/folic acid was present only in one facility. Conclusion: Less than half of the study participants (47.7%) were satisfied with the ANC service. This should be a major concern to health care providers both at the grass-root and other levels & if we are wishing to achieve MDG of reducing MMR by three-fourth by the year 2015, improvement of ANC care in terms of quality is vital.