Assessing the Influence of Clinic-based Health Education on Pregnant Women's Utilization of Primary Health Care Services in Ogun State

Aims: The paper assessed the influence of clinic-based health education (C-BHE) on pregnant women’s attitude in relation to birth preparedness, complication and readiness (BP/CR) and utilization of Primary Health Care (PHC) services in Ogun State.

Study Design: Quasi-experimental design was used. Primary data was collected from surveyed participants.

Place and Duration of Study: Study was conducted between February and May 2013 in Ikenne, Ogun state, Nigeria.

Methodology: Stratified sampling method was used to allocate 48 pregnant women, attending ante-natal care, each to experimental and control groups, making a total of 96 respondents. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data from the respondents. The women in the experimental group were exposed to two hours of health education discussion addressing pertinent maternal health issues weekly for five weeks. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and independent t-test. All tests were measured at p≤0.05 level of significance.

Results: Results showed that the women were between 19 and 24 years, had up to secondary education, recorded parity of 1-2 while timing of first visit was between 20 and 24 weeks of gestation and number of Ante-natal visits were ≥ 4. At baseline, there were no significant difference in the attitudes and desires for utilization of PHC facility for delivery for the experimental and control groups. However, after intervention, the mean scores for variables measuring attitudes to BP/CR and desire to utilize PHC facility for the experimental group increased and were significantly higher than the control group. Follow-up evaluation confirmed that the C-BHE increased actual utilization of PHC centre for delivery among the respondents in the experimental group (75%) as compared to the control group (42%).

Conclusion: Corroborative intervention programme initiatives, directed at creating more awareness about benefits of professional attendants during delivery, stimulating attitudinal change towards BP/CR and fostering necessary confidence in the PHC services for pregnant women should be encouraged.