English Abstract
Abstract :
Postnatal services were put as one of the Ministry of Health's priorities, as these services are offered as a free service to all women who delivered and it is done from 6 week of delivery up to 3 months.
There were around 11,219 pregnancies in year 2005; out of this number 4,370 had postnatal or post abortion check up giving a postnatal utilization rate of 39%.
Despite the free service and being accessible and easy to reach for all target women's groups, the utilization rate of postnatal clinics in Bahrain does not appear to reach the rates in developed countries.
This study aims to identify the main factors influencing the utilization of postnatal clinics in order to improve the utilization rate for postnatal services in Bahrain.
Methods: A cross sectional descriptive study with group comparison including 498 women. Children attending the child welfare section for vaccination in selected health centers aged 4-18 months were selected and their mothers were interviewed.
Results: Fifty- seven percent of the interviewed women attended the postnatal clinic. The factors which showed significant relation to the postnatal attendance were age at marriage, knowledge of postnatal clinic, the source of their knowledge, the knowledge of its location and their previous attendance. Multiple logistic regressions revealed that the women's postnatal clinic attendance is significantly influenced by their previous attendance to the post natal clinic.
Conclusion: Although the attendance rate at postnatal clinic in Bahrain is 57%, yet, this rate is low in comparison with the rate in developed countries (around 90%) and room for improvement remains.
