Evaluation of Reproductive Health Services at Jabalia and Al-Bureij Women's Health Centers

Date
2015-01-01
Authors
Maha Sabry mustfa El Akkad
مها صبري مصطفى العقاد
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Al-Quds University
Abstract
Worldwide, Reproductive Health problems are among the top leading causes of morbidity and mortality among women of reproductive age. In the Gaza Strip, programs that offer Reproductive Health services exist in most health service organizations; however, not all of these programs provide comprehensive services. Among the programs that provide comprehensive Reproductive Health services are the two Women Health Centers in Jabalia and Al-Bureij refugee Camps. The two Centers also provide legal, psychosocial, and physiotherapy services. The study aimed to evaluate the Reproductive Health services in the two women health Centers in order to improve the quality and effectiveness of the provided services. This study is a mixed methods; it involves both quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative were collected from beneficiaries of Reproductive Health clinics within the two Centers. In total, 375 randomly selected women participated in the quantitative study, with 89.3% response rate. The qualitative data were collected through nine in-depth interviews with senior managers and providers, and six focus group discussions with beneficiaries of two Centers' service, with participation of 38 women. The researcher insured reliability, validity and trustworthiness of the study tools. Different descriptive and inferential statistical tests were used to analysis the quantitative data while Open Coding Thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The quantitative study revealed that the participants were women aged between 16 and 65 years with average of 11.86 years of schooling. The majority of participants (96.8%) were married. Only 16% of the participants were employed and about 52% of them have monthly income of less than 1,000 ILS per month. Both quantitative and qualitative studies revealed that women's health status and their wellbeing have been improved as a result of utilizing the two center services. The vast majority of the participants (98.7%) have received the services they were supposed to, and these services met their health needs as indicated by 95.2% of participants. From beneficiaries' perspectives, the overall mean percentage of accessibility, affordability, and availability of selected services was 81.18%. And for providers’ respect of privacy, confidentiality and dignity, the mean percentage was 87.68. It was 83.4% for the infrastructure and equipment, while it was 85.30% for skilled and competency of the health providers. General satisfaction of women related to the provided Reproductive Health services was 87.8%, congruently; the qualitative findings have shown high level of satisfaction with the provided legal, psychosocial, and physical therapy services. The study has showed that there is a limited financial sustainability of services as the two Centers are funded by external donors. To conclude, offering integrated reproductive services was very efficient and effective way of providing services; more efforts are needed to increase the utilization of postnatal care service and utilization of services by youth and single women.
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