Abstract

ASSESSMENT OF FAMILY PLANNING SERVICE QUALITY IN AYDER SUB-CITY OF MEKELLE CITY, NORTHERN ETHIOPIA 2013; A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY.

Hailay Abrha, Kalayou Kidanu and *Mekuria Kassa

ABSTRACT

Background: Currently, the world population is growing by over 80 million people every year. Such a change is unprecedented. It was not until about 1800, that the world’s total population reached 1 billion. It took approximately another century to reach 2 billion. In the past 50 years more people have been added to the world’s population than during the previous 4 million years. According to the UN projections, by 2025 the world would contain over 8 billion people, of which some 6.8 billion would live in developing countries. Studies in a number of countries indicated that wherever fertility is high, maternal, infant and child mortality rates are high too. In parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, there were more than 1,500 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births; in USA this ratio was 12 deaths per 100,000 live births. Objective: was assessment of family planning service quality in Ayder sub-city of Mekelle city, northern Ethiopia 2013. Methodology: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among reproductive age women currently using family planning in Ayder sub-city, in Mekelle town, from Apr to June 2013 G.C. Data was collected using self administered questionnaire by trained data collectors for randomly selected study participants. The data quality was assured by conducting the pre-test in Adi-ha sub-city and after collection it was checked for completeness before basic analysis is performed. Result: A total of one hundred ninety six female clients from Ayder sub-city were interviewed. Ten clients were not volunteer to be interviewed; this make the response rate was 196(100%). The mean age was found in the age group of 25-29years .The majority of participants 53 (27%) were between 25-29years old. About 138 (70%) were married.41 (21%) were not married, the rest were widowed and divorced. One hundred forty (71%) of the study participants had children. The majority of the clients, 119 (67%) were Secondary and above and 55 (28%). Regarding the quality of the service provided 57% responded very good,38% good ,4% fair and 2% poor. Conclusion and recommendation: Longer waiting time, were some constraints for client dissatisfaction in the quality provided by the service. Efforts should be made to increase the number of health service delivery points and strengthen the existing clinics. This needs discussion with policy makers and donor agencies.

Keywords: Family planning services, women and quality.