ASSESSMENT OF QUALITY OF FOCUSED ANTENATAL CARE AT MAAMOBI GENERAL HOSPITAL IN THE GREATER ACCRA REGION, GHANA

ABSTRACT Background: Quality of antenatal care (ANC) is important because it has profound effect on health status of both the mother and the baby. Studies have revealed that several factors contribute to poor quality of antenatal care services including inadequate resources, medical supplies and drugs and poor provider client relationship. In the Greater Accra region, little is known about the quality of antenatal care services provided to pregnant women. The aim of the study was to assess the provision of quality focused antenatal care (FANC) services at Maamobi General Hospital in Accra, Ghana. Methods: The study employed descriptive cross-sectional design. Data were collected from 413 pregnant women during exit interviews using semi- structured questionnaire. Observational checklist was used to assess infrastructure and health care workers’ practices. Consecutive sampling was used to select pregnant women attending ANC services at the Maamobi General Hospital while convenient sampling was used for selecting health workers in the ANC department to participate in the study. Quantitative data was entered using SPSS version 20, then exported into Stata version 13 for analysis. Descriptive and inferential statistics were performed to describe the data and to find associations. Findings: The results showed that almost all (96.1%) respondents were satisfied with FANC services. Drugs, supplies for infection prevention and some FANC guidelines were available. History taking, clinical and laboratory investigations and head to toe examination of the clients were done on almost all the respondents. After controlling for other variables, adequacy of space at ANC (p = 0.027), explanation of physical examination findings to clients (p = 0.001) and ability to communicate in privacy (p = 0.001) were significantly associated with satisfaction with quality of FANC services. Conclusion: Quality of FANC services is good at Maamobi General Hospital. Nonetheless, there is need to provide FANC guidelines at ANC department.