Abstract:
The study explores the factors that influence decisions of women in the
Kassena Nankana District from delivering or not delivering in the health care facilities despite their use of antenatal care services at the facilities.
Multistage sampling procedure was used to select two groups of women who had antenatal care at the facilities. Two hundred women were interviewed i.e. 100 who delivered at the facilities and 100 who delivered at home.
A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents on variables under study. The variables were related to socio demographic characteristics, influence of family, accessibility and affordability of services to clients and client satisfaction of services provided and how each influence the women’s decisions to deliver or not at the facility.
The analysis of data consisted of data entry and computation of frequencies into percentages and proportions and presentation in tables and figures using SPSS and Excel soft wares.
The results showed that low social status due to low educational status and low income, influence of cultural beliefs; lack of access to health facilities due to distance and lack of transport and negative staff attitude towards women were major factors that contributed to women not delivering at the health facilities in the district.
The study found that majority (90.5%) of all respondents wish to deliver their next child at the health facilities and all of them knew at least one risk of not delivering at the health facility.
Recommendations are directed towards
1. Intensifying education to all community members on importance and benefits of delivering at the health facilities.
2. Involvement of spouses and relatives during Antenatal care to gain their support,
3. Expanding the Community-based Health Planning and Services initiative to all communities,
4. Expediting action on free delivery
5. Training of health staff on human relations and communication skills to ensure quality of care.
6. Provision of means of transport in distant communities for referral purposes.
7. Provision of effective communication systems to deprived communities
8. Giving awards a form of motivation to health care providers who accept posting to deprived areas.
