dc.description.abstract | The study set out to determine the factors affecting the antenatal care service utilisation among women in Northern Uganda. The study was mainly guided by the following objectives, namely; to assess the relationship between social economic, demographic factors and the number of ANC visits, to determine the relationship between service providers and number of antenatal visits and to examine the relationship between facilities of antenatal care and the number of antenatal visits made by women in northern Uganda.
The researcher used secondary data that was extracted from the Uganda Demographic and Health survey (UBOS, 2006). A total of 8,531 women in the reproductive age group 15-49 were interviewed and out of which 1,664 (19.5%) women were from the Northern region, which was the focus of this study.
It was analyzed at the univariate level using frequency distributions, bivariate level using cross tabulations to determine the relationships between the dependent and the independent variables and multivariate analysis was carried out using the poisson regression model to determine the contribution of each of the independent factors on the dependent one.
The findings show that the majority of the respondents aged 15-19 years (20.0%), attained primary education (51.0%), were Catholics (71.0%) and resided in rural areas (95.1%). At bivariate level, the study found a significant association between facilities (p=0.024), providers of antenatal care (p=0.032) and the number of antenatal visits. At multivariate level age, children ever born showed a significant association with antenatal care visits.
The study recommended that health facilities should be located near communities so as to bring services closer to them. This could be done by training more midwives who serve as the critical link between communities and post them to health centers. Training more TBAs and equipping them with appropriate tools and responsibilities to teach the women about the importance of antenatal care services can also improve accessibility. | en_US |