International E-Journal of Advances in Social Sciences
Yazarlar: Dominic Azuh, Akunna Azuh, Fagbeminiyi Fasina, Paul Adekola, Emmanuel Amoo, Muyiwa Oladosun
Konular:Sosyal
DOI:10.18769/ijasos.370661
Anahtar Kelimeler:Knowledge,Maternal mortality,Usage,Socio-demographic factors,Antenatal care
Özet: Poor knowledge of socio-demographic factors limit access and utilization of health care services among pregnant women. The objectives of this paper are to examine the factors which influence health care usage and to suggest policy guidelines to boost the use of healthcare particularly among antenatal women. The study covers five (5) rural political wards of Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area in Ogun State, Nigeria. A stratified sampling technique was adopted in selecting the respondents who were ever married women in child bearing age (15-49) years who had at least one live-birth in the last three years preceding the survey. Stratified sampling technique was employed because the study was based on different political wards. It enabled more consistent responses within each political ward. This technique consists in taking random samples within each selected ward and combining it with samples proportionate to the size of each ward to ensure representative of the population for wider generalization of findings. On the whole, 260 female respondents were randomly selected from five wards out of the sixteen wards. Data were gathered through questionnaire instrument and analyzed statistically using statistical package for social sciences. Regression analysis showed that treatment decision and distance to health facility are negatively related to health program usage by pregnant mothers. Educational attainments, payment of treatment bills, respondent’s age and husband’s perception about pregnancy are positively associated to antennal care (ANC) use. Also, since the F- statistics calculated is greater than the F- tabulated thereby validating the hypothesis that the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents are significantly related to the health program usage by pregnant mothers. The above findings show that education, husband’s perception about pregnancy, treatment decision and payment of treatment cost weigh more on the use of modern health care services. Hence, Costs alleviation for women seeking antenatal care and delivery services should be put in place to encourage women to use health services and government should give priority to women education and empowerment. In addition, effort should be made to revitalize rural health facilities and establish mid-way service delivery points to reduce the problem of distance.