ABSTRACT

Background: Antenatal care is one of the basic components of maternal care on which the life of mothers and babies depend. Antenatal care is the care given to pregnant women in order to have a safe pregnancy and a healthy baby, hence is a major strategy for reducing maternal and infant morbidity and mortality rate. Effective and efficient antenatal health care service is associated with improved maternal and infant health outcome.

Objectives: This study aimed to assess the availability, accessibility, and utilization of antenatal care services in primary health care centers in rural communities of Kebbi State.

Methods: This study was an experimental cross-sectional type of four hundred and twenty (420) participants who were recruited using a multi-stage sampling method and interviewed using a structured questionnaire. They included pregnant women, those that had given birth in the last five years preceding the study and female health workers working in antenatal care facilities. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data generated, results presented in tabular forms and level of significance set at p < 0.05.

Results: The findings revealed that 405 (96.4%) of respondents said there are health care centers in their communities and 15 (3.6%) said there were no health care centers in their communities and 394 (83.7%) of respondents said the nature of health care centers in their communities were primary health care centers, while 48 (10.2%) said there were general hospitals in their community. The predictors of time not too long before seeing a health worker, being charged for services, travel time and waiting time, availability such as location PHCs being close to home, education, low cost of services, trust in health providers/high quality of care, availability of female health care providers and medical supplies were all statistically significant factors that influenced utilization and women preference of primary health care centers, at p < 0.05.

Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, availability, accessibility factors such as medical supplies, lack of transport, high transport costs, distances to health care facilities, health care workers’ attitude types and waiting time as well as delays in receiving care influenced women’s utilization of ANC services in rural communities of Kebbi. Community health workers should be updated on the recent developments in antenatal care and should be trained on how to critically appraise literature for evidence-based practice.

KEYWORDS: ANC SERVICES, PHC, RURAL COMMUNITIES, KEBBI STATE, NIGERIA