Assessment of Health Facility Readiness for Family Planning Services in Sagnarigu Municipality in Northern Ghana.

Abstract

Introduction Ghana has annual family planning coverage target of 40%, but the annual coverage for Ghana, Northern Region and Sagnarigu Municipality for the year 2022 were 32.9%, 25.2% and 12.0% respectively. Addressing challenges of low FP uptake will result in sound socio-economic wellbeing of the women, families and the entire country. This study aimed at evaluating the readiness of health facilities for family planning (FP) services in the Sagnarigu Municipality of Northern Region., Methods: A quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted. Total enumeration of all the 42 health facilities delivering FP services in Sagnarigu Municipality was done. The respondents included Public Health Nurses, Midwives and Community Health Nurses, who were in-charges of FP units. A WHO adapted questionnaire was developed and deployed unto KoboCollect App, which was used for face-to-face interview with the health workers. The main outcome variable was health facility readiness for family planning. Aside the basic biodata of the respondents and basic information about the health facilities assessed, data were collected on management, consulting room, supplies and human resource domains for each health facility based on WHO standard SARA tracer indicators to determine the total domain performance. The four domain totals were used to generate health facility readiness score. Verification was also done to ascertain the availability and functionality of some of the domain tracer indicators/items before completing those questions that require that. Results: Out of a total of 42 health facilities assessed for readiness for FP services in Sagnarigu Municipality, CHPS constituted the majority 64% (27/42). Most of the health facility FP unit in-charges interviewed were midwives 54.8% (23/42). The mean age for the respondents was 34.9 years with a standard deviation of 8.6. The total score for management level readiness was 64.3% for all the 42 health facilities assessed. The total score for consulting room domain was 48.7%. The scores for total Supplies domain was 51.9% and that of total human resource domains 88.1%. The overall facility readiness for FP services was 63.2% for the municipality. By the SARA criteria for overall readiness, 81.0% (34/42) health facilities assessed were ready for FP services. Conclusion: Generally, total management level was ready, total consulting room was not ready, total supplies ready and total human resource was also ready. The overall facility readiness for FP services was above the WHO SARA threshold of ≥50%.