A Study to Assess the Utilization of Maternal Health Services at Primary Health Centres among pregnant mothers in selected rural areas, Davangere

Maternal Health is an important aspect for the development of any country in terms of increasing equity & reducing poverty. The survival and well-being of mothers is not only important in their own right but are also central to solving large broader, economic, social and developmental challenges. Public health initiatives over the last two to three decades have helped India to improve health indicators such as life expectancy and total fertility rate to a great extent. Despite a series of national level safe motherhood policies and programmatic initiatives over the past two decades there is little evidence that maternity has become significantly safer in India. Objectives: To assess the level of utilization of maternal health services among pregnant mothers. 1. To identify the factors determine the utilization of maternal health services among pregnant mothers. 2. To determine the association between level of utilization of maternal health services among pregnant mothers and their selected demographic variable. Methods: Non-experimental descriptive survey design was adopted to accomplish the objectives of the study. A sample of 60 pregnant mothers was selected by using convenient sampling technique. Level of utilization of maternal health services among pregnant mothers was determined by administering structured questionnaire. The factors determine the utilization of maternal health services among pregnant mothers was assessed by using checklist. Results: Findings of the study revealed that the 38.3% of the subjects had good utilization of maternal health services, 28.3% of them had moderate utilization and 33.3% of them had low level of utilization. The mean utilization scores of pregnant mothers was 12.85 (64.25%) with the standard deviation of 4.445 indicates that the pregnant mothers had moderate level of utilization of maternal health services. The major factor determining the utilization was Regularity of immunization sessions (83.3%) followed by Family members motivates to go utilize maternal health services 78.3%, Family members accompany during visit to health centre (78.3%) and Length of waiting time (78.3%) Conclusion: From the study findings it is evident that there was a statistically significant association between the Level of utilization of the maternal health services among pregnant mothers and selected demographic variables such as age, religion, education and gravida status at the probability level of p<0.05.