Exploring factors that influence of uptake and utilisation of maternity health services among adolescent women to inform designing of novel adolescent friendly maternity health services in Malawi: A formative qualitative study
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Date
2021-08-02
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Kamuzu University of Health Sciences
Abstract
Type of research study: the study will use a longitudinal qualitative design in the
phenomenological tradition. Pregnant adolescents will be recruited in their second or
third trimester and they will be followed until 6 weeks postpartum. Data will be
collected during the antenatal period, one week postpartum and six weeks
postpartum.
The problem: Maternal health services in Malawi are provided in all government
hospitals, starting right from the primary health care facilities, and are rendered at no
cost. Despite the availability of these services, some adolescent women inadequately
utilizse them, and do not gain maximum benefits of the services, by reporting late to
book for ANC, for labour and delivery, and as well as for their postnatal checkups.
This situation increases the risk of infant and maternal morbidity and mortality. Hence,
this research proposal seeks to address this challenge by understanding the factors
that influence and strategies for improving the utilization of maternal health services
among the adolescents in resource resource-limited settings, which is one of the
contributing factors to maternal and infant morbiditly and mortality.
Objective: To assess the factors that influence and strategies for optimizing utilization of
maternity services among adolescent women. in Zomba Malawi. Specific objectives; toally
we will assess knowledge and experiences of adolescent women of maternal health
services;, to explore factors that influence adolescent women’s decision to utilize
maternal health services, and to identify barriers and facilitators to utilization of maternity
services and strategies for optimizing utilization of maternity services among adolescents.
in Zomba.
Methods: the The study will use a longitudinala qualitative design in the
phenomenological tradition. Pregnant adolescents in their second or third trimesters, will
be purposively selected and upon giving consent to participate in the study, they will be
recruited. Data will be collected from participants through Vignettes, pictorial diaries, and
In-depth interviews at three three-time intervals; during the antenatal period, one week
postpartum, and six weeks postpartum, to help the researcher understand adolescents’
experiences while they were receiving care when they were pregnant, during labour and
deliver and after they had delivered. In addition to the above above-mentioned methods,
literate participants will also be given diaries in which they will write down their
experiences during pregnancy. All the tools for data collection will be presented in the
local language and will be recorded on a digital recorder then transcribed in English
verbatim. Transcripts will then be imported into Nvivo software. Thematic data analysis
will be used in this study. Safety The safety of data will be ensured by using a password
to get access into the database.
Expected findings and their dissemination; It is expected that the study will provide
information on determinants of uptake and strategies of improving the utilizsation of
maternity health services among adolescent mothers. Results of this study will be
presented at both the district and at the national level through review meetings
coordinated by MOH and other stakeholders. Also, at the College of Medicine research
dissemination conference. Printed hard copies will be made available to the College of
Medicine library Library and COMREC. Finally, the prepared paper will be submitted to
peer review journals for publication and summarized in policy briefs and posters.
Possible constraints: Conduct The conduct of the study may be challenged with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. We propose to conduct both telephonic and face-to-face
methods of data collection to mitigate the unintended consequences of COVOD-19