Pregnant Women's Perception of the Effectiveness, Safety and Timeliness of Antenatal Services Provided by Midwives in Government-Owned Healthcare Facilities in South-South Nigeria

Background: Both non- and under-utilization of antenatal services can lead to poor materno-fetal outcomes. Perception of the effectiveness, safety and timeliness of the services by pregnant women may substantially affect the utilization. Objectives: The objectives of this study were to determine pregnant women’s perception of the effectiveness, safety and timeliness of the antenatal services provided by midwives, and the relationships between effectiveness, safety and timeliness of antenatal services at government-owned healthcare facilities in South-South Nigeria. Method: A cross-sectional research design was adopted for the study. Multistage sampling technique was used to select 30 primary, secondary and tertiary government-owned health facilities across the six States in South-South Nigeria from which 50 respondents were selected from each of the selected facilities. A total of 1,500 pregnant women were selected for the study. The instrument used for data collection was a self-developed Questionnaire on Pregnant Women’s Perception of the Effectiveness, Safety and Timeliness of Antenatal Services Provided by Midwives. The reliability of the instrument was established through the test-retest method using Cronbach’s alpha which yielded co-efficient of 0.715. Data collected were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, mean and Spearman Rank order correlation. Results: The result showed means of 4.27+0.68, 3.72+1.03, 3.23+1.17 respectively for pregnant women’s perceived effectiveness, safety and timeliness of antenatal services provided by midwives. Significant relationships also existed between safety and effectiveness (rho = 0.33, p < 0.001), as well as between timeliness and effectiveness (rho = 0.10, p < 0.001) of the antenatal services. Conclusion: Pregnant women in South-South Nigeria had a positive perception of effectiveness, safety and timeliness of the antenatal services provided by midwives. Midwives in government-owned healthcare facilities should conduct regular evaluations to get feedback from pregnant women regarding the quality of antenatal services they provide.