Bekana Fekecha Hurissa and Tewodros Getinet
Background: Women friendly care is an approach to care giving with the goal of creating an enabling environment at all level to improve women’s access to safe motherhood and reproductive health services.
Objectives: to assess the provision of women friendly care and associated factors among postnatal mothers at three public hospitals of Jimma zone
Methods: A facility based cross-sectional quantitative study design was conducted on 264 respondents. Systematic random sampling technique was used for selecting study subjects. Pre-tested structured questionnaires were used to collect data from April-May 2016.The data was entered, cleaned and analyzed by using SPSS version 21. Binary and Multivariable logistic regressions were used for data analysis.
Results: A total of 264 Jimma University specialized, Shenen Gibe and Limmu Genet Hospital respondents participated in the study with the response rate of 99.24%. More than half of respondents’, 147 (56.1%) main means of transport to health facility was walk/on foot, and 128 (48.9%) of them needed 30 minutes to reach there. From the total respondents, 186 (71%) had received the provision of women friendly care at ANC, Delivery and Postnatal wards. Variables found to be statistically associated to provision of women friendly care at p<0.05 were: Main means of transport (public transport) (AOR=3.99, 95 CI [1.98, 8.05], Left alone in labor (AOR=0.41, 95 CI [0.19, 0.87], and were you treated badly (AOR=0.054, 95 CI [0.023, 0.13].
Conclusion and Recommendations: The provision of women friendly care at study area among respondents was 71% and the factors statistically associated to it were:-main means of transport left alone in labor and treated badly. Each health facilities’ administrative body being in collaboration with regional health bureau and regional government must facilitate the health service delivery system to be as accessible as possible for pregnant, delivering and postnatal mothers.