Quality of health care and its effects in the utilisation of maternal and child health services in Kenya
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Date
2005-11Author
Audo, M. O.
Ferguson, A.
Njoroge, P. K.
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Objective: To assess the quality of care provided by the Kisumu Municipal health facilities, with special reference to Maternal and Child health services (MCH). Design. A descriptive cross-sectional survey.
Setting: Kisumu Municipal Health facilities.
Subjects: Four hundred and eighty two mothers were interviewed in a household
survey.
Results: A total of.482 mothers were interviewed in the household survey. Out of these,
only 40.4%, 53.7% and 45.7% hadrespectively used Municipal facilities for antenatal services (AN C), immunisation and treatment of their children the last time they required such a service. This translates to by-pass rates for Municipal health facilities of 59.5%, 46.3% and 54.3% respectively for the three services. By-pass was higher for the more central urban catchment areas than the more peripheral ones, a finding that. was associated with the socio-economic status of the respondents and the relative location of the municipal facilities vis-a-vis competing facilities, mainly the District and Provincial hospitals. The main reasons cited for by-pass were poor care (21 %), lack of drugs and supplies (17 %) and lack of/poor laboratory services (12 %). From the facility audit, most of the clinics had a reasonable capacity to offer basic health care with only three scoring less than 50% in the scale used. The worst areas were in availability of drugs, equipment and management issues. There was a strong relationship between the perceived quality of care and utilisation of MCH services as well as by-pass. The capacity of the facilities to offer care was however not associated with utilisation of MCH services or by-pass.
Conclusion: There is under-utilisation of Municipal health facilities for MCH services. This is related to the perceived poor quality of care in the facilities. Perception of quality is influenced by a person's socio-economic status especially education.
URI
http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/11164http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16463747
Citation
East African medical journalPublisher
Department of Community Health, College of Health Sciences, University of Nairobi Programme Manager, Strengtherung STD/HIV Control Project in Kenya
Description
Quality of health care and its effects in the utilisation of maternal and child health services in Kenya
Collections
- Faculty of Health Sciences (FHS) [10387]