Assessment of Women’s Knowledge and Attitudes to Antenatal and Post Natal Care Services in Sekyere West District

Abstract

The study assessed women’s knowledge and attitude towards ANC and PHC in the Sekyere West District. The coverage of ANC has been persistently higher than PNC. Even though the DHMT was aware of the difference, they had no knowledge about the underlying factors. The information was needed by the DHMT, to help improve Information based planning. The main objective was to find out women’s knowledge and attitude towards ANC and PNC as well as any constraints the women might face in the use of PNC services. The study area is the Sekyere West District; study type was descriptive cross sectional in character. Multistage sampling was used to select the respondent consisting of women who had their deliveries within the last five years. Structured questionnaires and focus group discussions were used in data collection. Data collected were processed and analysed partly manually and partly by using the Epi info software. The main finding were: 1. Most of the women (about 98%) were married and a greater majority of them were Christians with low educational level. 2. They had a fair knowledge about ANC and PNC. About 83% o f the respondents knew the correct meaning of ANC and about 52% knew the correct meaning of PNC. The respondents had fair knowledge about the benefits and delivery points for both ANC and PNC. 3 About two thirds of the respondents have the opinion that a women should attend ANC more than five times and with PNC, 37.6% of the respondents said a woman should attend more than four times. Most of the respondents (61.6%) think that if a woman does not attend PNC or ANC, the baby and/or mother may die. 4. The study revealed that, cost of PNC services and distance to health facilities for PNC services are not constraints in acquiring PNC services. However, the major constraints were the requirements for attendance at PNC e.g. dresses, new baby dress, new shoe. Gossiping and laziness on the part of the mothers were also contributing factors. The thought that they would be charged; children’s tendency to get sick after immunisation, competition among mothers; having no time and single parenting were other constraints which prevent women from using available PNC services. 5. Poverty ranks first as a constraint for mothers not attending PNC. A more careful look at the results show that, poverty in this context is defined as inability to acquire the items the women consider as requirements for attendance at PNC. Based on the findings from the study, the following recommendations have been made to the DHMT; 1. There should be health education messages to inform women that PNC attendance is not a fashion arena and as such one can attend in any dress or cloth. Furthermore PNC services could be offered at outreach points so that women could use their housedresses. 2. Mothers should be told that, the little fever that may follow immunization is short-lived but the protection is of great benefit to the child. 3. Most of the women are Christians, as such a lot of health education messages could be delivered through the churches. 4. There is the need to intensify health education messages to let mothers know that ANC services are free. 5. The mothers should be taught about time management, so that amidst their perceived tight work schedule they could find time to attend PNC. 6. Husbands should be involved and invited to attend health education sessions because most of the respondents are married and the husbands have influence on their decisions.