Antepartum Care Users' and Health Professionals’ Awareness and Experiences of Antenatal Care Health Education: A Qualitative-Descriptive Study in Ethiopia
Abstract
Fikirte WoldeselassieWoldeyohannes and Lebisti Modiba
Background: The availability and accessibility of quality antepartum health education are key determinants in the provision of adequate health care to pregnant women in Ethiopia. However, many pregnant women expressed their complaints concerning the antepartum care service they received. It is difficult to find documented evidence that assesses the effectiveness of health professionals' health education interventions during antepartum care services in Ethiopia.
Methods: A qualitative-descriptive research design was used to explore the awareness and experience of pregnant women and health professionals who were providing ANC. For the sake of this study, five public health centers were deliberately selected. As data-gathering instruments, five focus group discussions (FGD) and five key informant interviews (KII) were used. The data was gathered from pregnant women and health professionals working in antepartum care from June 20–30, 2018.
Results: Study informants reported that healthcare providers were not providing adequate, appropriate, and up-to-date health education regarding pregnancy-related issues to mothers as expected. The finding also revealed the existence of misunderstandings among healthcare providers about the importance of birth preparedness and complication readiness (BPCR) in health education sessions during antenatal care. Lack of time to prepare standards of care and protocols, the attitude of healthcare professionals, work overload of healthcare professionals, pregnant women's responsibilities at home, and the growing number of clients in the health centers were the major barriers that contributed to the poor delivery of effective antepartum care health education.
Conclusions and recommendations: Inadequate antepartum care health education provided to mothers was the source of multiple challenges for women, causing a direct or indirect impact on their pregnancy. The researchers of this study recommend that policymakers and programmers develop a strategy to strengthen the quality of antenatal care health education.