| dc.description.abstract | Background: Postnatal care is one of the services that should be provided to the mother and the baby for proper child development and faster recovery from child birth. Various information and care is needed during this period for example the need for family planning, proper nutrition to the mother and the baby, immunization procedures and many more others.
The main objective of the study was to examine the factors that determine postnatal care services utilization in Bunyoro region, Uganda. The study was developed upon the poor performance of the region in postnatal services utilization as indicated in the Report with only 38% of the mothers 15-49 having received a baby postnatal checkup after birth in the last two months preceding the survey.
Data and methods; The study utilized the UDHS2016 Birth record file where women were asked whether they received a baby postnatal check in the last two months after birth. The data was analysed at both univariate and bivariate levels of analysis. At univariate descriptive statistics were generated using frequencies and percentages. At bivariate cross tabulations were generation, and associations were drawn by use of p-values and chi-square test.
Results; Out of 582 women interviewed, 84.7% of the women interviewed had not received and only 15.7% of them reported having received baby postnatal checkup in the last two months after birth. Marital status(χ2=11.238,df=5,p-value=0.047) and media exposure, frequency of watching a television (χ2=6.481,df=2,p-value=0.039),frequency of watching a radio (χ2=17.091,df=2,p-value=0.000) were significantly associated with postnatal care services utilization in Bunyoro region of Uganda. According to the results widowed women were more likely to utilize postnatal care services.
Conclusion; The married and the widowed were more likely to utilize postnatal care services because they could be in need of postponing pregnancy. The widowed take the responsibility of raising the child alone as opposed to other marital status.
Recommendations; Village health workers should be trained to follow up women who give birth in the village through a home based approach and teach them the importance of postnatal care services. Furthermore special clinics for postnatal consultation should be set up plus sending letters to husbands like it’s done in Kampala to escort their wives. Gifts should be given to women who go with their husbands at each visit. | en_US |
