| dc.description.abstract | Background:
Quality according to the Institute of medicine is the extent by which health care services for individuals and populations raise the possibility of the desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge. Quality of VHT work in the study has been looked at in the dimensions of the VHT ability to influence mothers to attend at least 4 ANCs and eventually access accredited health facility deliveries. The main focus of the study was to measure the importance of VHTs on improving maternal health care.
Methods:
Data on demographics and social behaviors, knowledge on the key actions during pregnancy, labor and PNC periods, and awareness of possible complications that may occur during pregnancy labor and PNC periods were assessed from PNC mothers at health center IIIs and Health center IV on the immunization day of their babies. Translated self administered questionnaires were used to obtain the required information from participants. VHTs at community level were looked at and measured in terms of how mothers interpreted their massage on maternal health utilization.
Results:
The study examined 202 participants and all were postnatal mothers. The independent predictors of attending at least 4 ANCs and attending an accredited health facility deliveries out of the Knowledge factors were; mother’s knowledge on the need to have iron supplements (X 2 =5.542, P value 0.022), a mother adhering to taking the iron supplements (X2 = 7.598, P value = 0.022), those who were taught on the need to test for HIV (X2 = 7.011, P value = 0.011) and the period when a mother selected her place of delivery (X2 = 7.153, P value = 0.028) [Table 2C]. The period when a mother started ANCs was seen as a determinant (X2 = 15, P value = 0.000) to attending at least 4 ANC visits and having a health facility delivery and Number of ANCs attended by a participant highly (X2 = 77.450, P value = 0.000) determined their place of delivery. Majority (138) of participants who attended at least 4 ANCs, 92 had a facility based delivery [table 3C].
Conclusion and recommendations:
If only strategic partnerships between communities and health systems on minimum package of concurrently employed strategies offers the potential for an increased progress in improving the VHT performance at scale, a tremendous job of improving quality of VHT health services will have been initiated. Since it has been observed in several studies that most mothers who die from maternal related complications, are delayed between making decisions to when, where and how to access care, VHTs are the solution that can merge that gap between communities and health facilities. | en_US |
