Assistant Proffesor, Dept. of Community Medicine, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Medical College, K G Halli, Bangalore, Karnataka
Utilization of health services is a complex behavioural phenomenon affected by multitude of factors including availability, distance, cost and quality of care as well as personal attitudes & socioeconomic characteristics.
To study the current level of utilization of selected maternal services by Mothers. To find out the reasons for current level of utilization of these services.
It is a cross sectional study done in 4 PHC areas in Bangalore Urban district. Data was collected among 80 women who had a live birth within last three years prior to the survey.
Percentages and chi square tests were done.
Out of 80 mothers, 2 women did not avail any services at all. Out of the rest 78 mothers, 64% had minimum 3 ANC visits, 22% of them had registered their pregnancy before 12 weeks, and 93.6% of the mothers received IFA tablets or syrup during pregnancy. It was seen that 97.4% of the women received at least one TT injection during pregnancy Nearly 46% and 42.7% of the mothers felt it is not necessary to register early and to have so many ANC checkups respectively. For 70% of them cost was the main reason for not taking IFA tablets.
In conclusion by improving educational status of women along with doing more and more awareness program about importance of antenatal care in the community will help in improving the utilization level of these services.
Utilization, Maternal Services, Antenatal Care, RCH Service
