Perception of prenatal services by antenatal clinic attendees in a tertiary health facility in Nigeria
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.60787/tnhj.v16i3.196Keywords:
Antenatal care services, Patients satisfaction, Antenatal visits, Perinatal mortalityAbstract
Background: Antenatal patronage is very low in most sub-Saharan African countries, Nigeria inclusive. It has also been recognisedthat most women who registered for antenatal care in a particular health institution, do not go back to the same centre to deliver when inlabour. Skilled attendant delivery is very low in Nigeria. While many reasons can be adduced for this health seeking behaviour, antenatal care satisfaction is one of them. We decided to study how satisfied are the antenatal subjects at the Federal MedicalCentre, Yenagoa.
Objective: The objective of this study is to determine antenatal mothers’ perception of prenatal services at the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, Nigeria.
Materials and Methods:This was a descriptive cross-sectionalobservational study conducted at the Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, Nigeria between 1stof June 2015 and 30thof September, 2015. A pretested questionnaire was administered to 198 consecutive antenatal attendees at the centre by two Interns serving in the department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.
Results: The mean number of antenatal visits was 4.2 ± 2.52 and the median was 4.0. One hundred and eighty-seven(94.5%) said the antenatal health talks were very educative, 103(52%) think the antenatal care visits should be made more frequent, 43 (21.7%) think they should reduce the frequency of visits, 183(92.4%) rated services at the centre from being good to excellent. One hundred and twenty-five (56.6%) respondents were generally dissatisfied with long waiting time to see doctors.
Conclusion: The majorityof mothers were happy with services and interventions rendered at the institution, measures that have been known to improve women’s health in pregnancy and also improve perinatal outcomes. However, a sizeable proportion of subjects were unhappy with long waiting time to see a doctor, an issue that had dogged obstetric practice in sub-Saharan Africa. This issue needsto be tackled by caregiversand stakeholders alike.
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