Factors Affecting Utilisation of Maternity Services in the Yendi District of the Northern Region of Ghana

Abstract

A cross-sectional study was conducted in the Yendi district to find out significant background characteristics and factors that differentiate women who attend prenatal service but deliver at home unsupervised, from those who attend prenatal service and had supervised delivery Interviews using a structured questionnaire were conducted. The study sample consisted of 400 women and 273 men selected through three steps multi-stage sampling technique from the 6 sub-districts in the district. Factors found to be consistently associated with supervised delivery in women attending prenatal service were, maternal age, ethnicity, occupation, place of residence, distance from health facility; access to trained personnel, financial constraints, ease of getting a vehicle to place of delivery, husband’s educational level and occupation. Where women had access to either trained TBAs or midwives, there was no difference between their utilisation by the women who attended prenatal service. Most husbands who make the decision about where the woman should deliver, said all other barriers to access taken care of, they will prefer their wives to deliver at the health facility with the midwives because it is safe. To improve supervised delivery in the district, there is the need to adopt a multisectoral approach involving all the stakeholders in health in the district to improve geographical and financial accessibility to supervised care.