Factors influencing the utilization of Focused antenatal care services during pregnancy, a study among postnatal women in a tertiary healthcare facility, Ghana.
Kennedy Diema Konlan, Joel Afram Saah, Roberta Mensima Amoah and 4 others
PMID 33072367WHAT IT FOUND
51.0% of postnatal women attended fewer than four focused antenatal care visits.
Low attendance was linked to distance, needing permission, fear of witchcraft, and not wanting many visits; midwives were a major information source.
Key findings
0151.0% of postnatal women made fewer than four focused antenatal care visits.
02Long distance, waiting to obtain permission, fear that wizards may terminate the pregnancy, and not wanting many visits were significantly associated with focused antenatal care attendance.
0351.4% of respondents cited midwives as a source of focused antenatal care information, while 47.1% reported no awareness of it.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Women were asked to recall their antenatal care after birth, so recall bias is possible. The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot show that any factor caused lower focused antenatal care attendance. Participants were recruited at a postnatal clinic, so women who did not attend postnatal services may be under-represented and may have had less awareness of antenatal care. The study was done at one tertiary hospital in Ghana, so results may not apply to other settings. Data came from a self-report questionnaire with dichotomised variables, and some reported associations were inconsistent with the authors' later statements, such as education.
Declared interests
The authors declared no competing interests.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that addressing these barriers will increase focused antenatal care attendance. This was a cross-sectional survey of postnatal women's recall, so it shows associations, not tested effects.