Abstract

Poor maternal health service delivery in Nigeria has resulted in many maternal deaths during pregnancy, childbirth or within a few weeks of delivery. This is partly due to unavailability and low utilisation of maternal health services in the country. The aim of this study was to investigate the use of maternal health care services in rural communities of Abia State. Two stage sampling technique was used to select180 women between 18 ? 49 years of age who had attended maternal health care services at the selected hospitals two months to the time of the research. A structured questionnaire, Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and participants? observation were used to collect information from the respondents. The data collected was analysed using descriptive (percentages and mean) and inferential (probit regression model) statistics. The result revealed that level of maternal health care utilisation was low with a grand mean score of (x ? = 1.63) and regression result showed that age (z=2.795 <0.01), household size (z=2.505 <0.05), education (z=3.282 <0.01), employment status (z=0.644 <0.05), distance to facility (z=2.705 <0.05) were positive and significantly related to utilisation of maternal health care services at various levels of significance. In conclusion, the study found that utilisation of maternal health care services is affected by socioeconomic characteristics of the rural women in the study area. It is therefore recommended that interventions geared towards socioeconomic characteristics of the women to enhance utilisation of maternal health care services should be encouraged.

PDF