Quality assurance of antenatal care in primary health care settings

[摘要] English: The health of a nation depends on the health of the mother. child and family thus antenatal care for pregnant women is of utmost importance. Antenatal care for pregnant women shouldtherefore be providedholistically and be of the highest quality. The purpose of this study was to assess the quality of antenatal care rendered to pregnant women in primary health care settings. The design was non-experimentalof an exploratory and descriptive nature and the survey method was used to collect the data. The results of this study showed that the pregnant women were not satisfied with aspects such as the attitude of personnel and the antenatal care rendered by health care practitioners. The pregnant women also indicatedthat health educationwas not on par and that too many pregnant women attended the clinics at the same time and that they have to come very early [03:00 in the morning] to ensure that they will be attended to before the end of the day. This problem was complicated by the fact that a staff shortage existed. The health care practitioners indicated that their morale was very low and that they had to work under difficult circumstances such as a shortage of staff insufficient stock and equipment as well as a high turnover of pregnant women which makes it difficult to render care holisticallyand of a highquality. Based on the above. recommendations are made that quality assurance programmes should be developed and implemented for antenatal care services in primary health care settings

[发布机构] University of the Free State