Factors Influencing Uptake of Postnatal Care Services in Bwera Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: Uptake of postnatal care is looked at in terms of availability, utilization, accessibility and acceptability of postnatal care services at Bwera hospital. Key study objectives were: establish the proportion of women seeking postnatal care; determine if child immunizations, maternal puerperium examinations, domiciliary visits, post natal exercises training, good cord care training services were offered; and the factors that encourage mothers to seek postnatal care at Bwera hospital.

Methodology: The survey was completed by 180 women who responded to a structured questionnaire that was given to them when they brought their children at the young child clinic of Bwera hospital. The respondents were selected using simple random sampling; the data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results: The study findings indicate that most women lacked knowledge and information about postnatal services and those who knew about these services only knew about immunisation and family planning services. The majority of the mothers did not know about other services, such as post natal exercises, counselling, growth monitoring, and physical examination. Other factors that influenced the uptake of postnatal care services included: service costs, distance from the health care facility, not being aware of the services, being busy and as well as mothers‟ occupation.

The ministry of health should educate women and communities about the importance of postnatal care, its availability, and the importance of women having decision-making power over their own health. The hospital should improve on the quality of care by ensuring that services are provided at convenient hours with privacy, confidentiality and respect and it should evaluate the services periodically from the user‟s perspective to maintain the quality of service.