AN ASSESSMENT OF FAMILY PLANNING SERVICE AVAILABILITY AND QUALITY IN PRIVATE HEALTH FACILITIES IN PLATEAU STATE, NIGERIA

Worldwide, there are inequitable differences in both the availability and quality of family planning services provided in different geographical regions of the world. In Nigeria's 2018 Demographic Health Survey, only 10.5% of women use a modern contraceptive method with 40.8% of users sourcing them from private sector providers. Despite the complementary role played by the private health facilities, women do not access and use family planning methods adequately. This study assessed the availability and quality of family planning services provided by private health facilities (PHFs) in Plateau state Nigeria. The study was a facility based cross-sectional study of private health facilities across the 17 Local Government Areas of Plateau state. A checklist questionnaire adapted from a combination of similar researches was used to capture details on availability and the quality of family planning services rendered by these private health facilities. Data analysis was done using descriptive and inferential statistics. Three hundred and fifty-six (356) private health facilities were covered in this study, the availability of family planning (FP) in Plateau state PHFs was found to be adequate in 75.3% of the facilities. The quality of family planning services was assessed, majority (59.6%) of the private health facilities has high quality. However, this does not go hand-in-hand with the availability of the same services. Reason for this was due to the differences in location, staff strength, different support given to facilities and the training of staff of the PHFs in the provision of family planning. Only 59% of these facilities were able to score above 13.5 on quality score and thereby considered as having high quality. There is need for more private health facilities inclusion in all forms of manpower development in family planning by government and other partners; this is to help improve the quality of family planning services in the private health sector of the state and country at large.