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
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
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.