TITLE:
Quality assessment of the practice of focused antenatal care (FANC) in rural and urban primary health centres in Ekiti State
AUTHORS:
Ikeoluwapo O. Ajayi, Damilola C. Osakinle, Eunice O. Osakinle
KEYWORDS:
Focused Antenatal Care; Urban and Rural Differences; Ekiti State; Primary Health Centers (PHCs)
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology,
Vol.3 No.3,
May
8,
2013
ABSTRACT:
Objective:
To ascertain that standard antenatal care (Focused antenatal care) is being
received at the Primary Health Care level in urban and rural areas of Ekiti
State and to determine the facilitating factors and challenges to the practice
of FANC in urban and rural areas. Design: Cross sectional. Setting: Primary
Health Centers Participants: Pregnant women and Heads of health facilities. Methods:
Two hundred respondents each from urban and rural areas primary health
centres were proportionately selected from 18 primary health centers using
simple random sampling. Exit interviews were conducted using the antenatal care
exit interview form of the Safe Motherhood Needs Assessment package. In-depth
Interviews were conducted with the heads of selected facilities. Data was
analysed using descriptive statistics and Chi square test and content analysis
for indepth interview. Results: More respondents 58 (29.3%) from the urban
areas had the minimum contents compared to 41 (20.7%) of the rural respondents
(p
state were received by a small proportion of the respondents, suggesting that focused antenatal care had not fully translated into
quality service; one major challenge to the delivery of standard antenatal care
was inadequate number of skilled health workers especially in the rural areas.
The gap between quality and utilisation of antenatal in urban and rural areas
is gradually being closed up; this success should be improved upon and maintained.