Stakeholders
Mixed method study done in Burkina Faso, with the participation of women, on quality of maternal care.
Results
Even though maternal health services are free in Burkina Faso, many women avoid care because they consider it to be of poor quality. Yet women's perceptions are rarely integrated into the way quality of care is usually measured and evaluated. In this study, 32 women of reproductive age, living in Ouagadougou or in Léo health district, were asked about their perceptions of quality of maternal care.
The aspects considered most influential by women, whether they live in rural or urban areas, were:
Women in rural areas also denounce:
Women in urban areas:
Other factors that women considered most influential—such as quality of the reception at the center or involvement of the partner—are not part of the indicators currently used to measure quality. The factors that emerged in this study, including rural–urban differences, provide a basis for improving evaluation tools by considering women's voices.
We compared existing tools for measuring the quality of maternal care (including Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Harmonized Health Facility Evaluation (HHFA)) with aspects considered influential for quality by women. We have seen that the current tools capture only a part (less than half) of women's perspectives on the quality of care.
An index that considers women's perspectives can be built from existing survey data, but reveals gaps, especially in women's experiences in health centres and relationships with health care workers, which are not captured in existing surveys.
Compared to traditional methods, taking into account the views of women can bring a different dimension to quality assessment.
Even though maternal health services are free in Burkina Faso, many women avoid care because they consider it to be of poor quality. Yet women's perceptions are rarely integrated into the way quality of care is usually measured and evaluated. In this study, 32 women of reproductive age, living in Ouagadougou or in Léo health district, were asked about their perceptions of quality of maternal care.
The aspects considered most influential by women, whether they live in rural or urban areas, were:
Women in rural areas also denounce:
Women in urban areas:
Other factors that women considered most influential—such as quality of the reception at the center or involvement of the partner—are not part of the indicators currently used to measure quality. The factors that emerged in this study, including rural–urban differences, provide a basis for improving evaluation tools by considering women's voices.
We compared existing tools for measuring the quality of maternal care (including Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Harmonized Health Facility Evaluation (HHFA)) with aspects considered influential for quality by women. We have seen that the current tools capture only a part (less than half) of women's perspectives on the quality of care.
An index that considers women's perspectives can be built from existing survey data, but reveals gaps, especially in women's experiences in health centres and relationships with health care workers, which are not captured in existing surveys.
Compared to traditional methods, taking into account the views of women can bring a different dimension to quality assessment.