Utilization of community-based health planning and services compounds in the Kintampo North Municipality: a cross-sectional descriptive correlational study

Abstract

Background: The Community-based Health Planning and Services (CHPS) initiative was introduced to improve coverage and utilization of basic health services for people in remote rural communities whose use of orthodox health services was hitherto limited by distance. To achieve this aim, the scheme has so far been scaled up to several communities nationwide as part of government's agenda to improve the general wellbeing of the populace. The objectives of this study were to examine the extent of patronage of CHPS compounds in the Kintampo North Municipality, factors associated with their use and challenges faced by community members regarding the use of these facilities. Methods: We adopted a descriptive cross-sectional correlational design for this study. We collected data from 171 household heads or their representatives, selected through a multistage sampling technique. The respondents were drawn from five randomly selected communities among those with CHPS compounds and their proportions weighted based on the populations of these communities. Results: Our analysis revealed that a high proportion (73.7%) of the respondents patronized CHPS compounds for health care. We also found sex and income to predict the use of the facilities though income was less significant after adjusting for sex in a multivariate analysis. Females were about six times more likely than males to patronize CHPS compounds (adjusted OR = 5.98, 95% CI 2.55, 14.0, P = < 0.01). Household heads earning between GH¢ 200.00 and GH¢ 300.00 were about nine times more likely to use the facilities than those who earned below GH¢ 100.00 (adjusted OR = 8.88, 95% CI 1.94, 40.6, P = 0.05). Our findings also showed that shortage of medicines (41.5%), lack of money to pay for services (28.7%) and absenteeism of Community Health Officers (CHOs) (12.3%) were major barriers to the use of the facilities. Conclusions: Based on the foregoing findings, there is an apparent need to ensure timely replenishment of medicines at the facilities and step up supervision of CHOs in order to sustain patronage of the compounds.

Community utilisation and satisfaction with the community-based health planning and services initiative in Ghana: a comparative study in two system learning districts of the CHPS+ project

“…This study examined community utilisation and satisfaction with CHPS services in two system learning districts of the CHPS+ Project in Ghana. We found that the level of utilisation of CHPS services in the two SLDs of our study was lower than the 73% reported by Wiru et al [15] in the Kintampo North Municipality of Ghana. Comparatively, we realised in our study that the level of utilisation was higher in the Nkwanta South Municipality than in the Central Tongu District.…”

“…We found that females were more likely to utilise CHPS services than males. This is similar to findings from Kintampo where females were 6 times more likely to use CHPS services than males [15]. The possible reasons could be that apart from family planning services, most CHPS services such as ANC, CWC, PNC, and skilled delivery, are female-focused.…”

“…Even though it is recognised that community utilisation and satisfaction with health services are important indicators of health systems performance and are useful tools in predicting future service utilisation [12,13], the utilisation and satisfaction with CHPS services have seen decreasing trends over past two decades [14][15][16] because CHPS services have been focused on the provision of clinical services and the construction of infrastructure to the detriment of community-based approaches which ensure that CHPS services are sent to the doorsteps of communities [17]. There was, therefore, the need to introduce interventions to improve its implementation and increase community utilisation and satisfaction with CHPS services.…”

First recourse for care-seeking and associated factors among rural populations in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo

“…The questionnaire (Additional file 1 ) was developed based on previous studies conducted in poor settings [ 13 , 14 , 39 ]. Content validity was assessed by public health experts from the Ecole Régionale de Santé Publique de Bukavu (Content validity index = 0.96).…”

Ghana National Community Health Planning and Services (CHPS) policy; gaps between policy and implementation, the need for policy review to address specific gaps

“…Though there has been high coverage of CHPS compounds in most communities as defined by the policy, studies show policy gaps as some fundamental principles on which the policy was design seemed to be ignored (3). The community involvement aspect, community-based resource mobilization, and community volunteerism are hardly seen in the actual CHPS projects (4). The community gaps are slowly turning the CHPS compounds into treatment centers that mostly lack the essential medical supply, buildings dilapidated, and in some cases maned by an inadequate number of Community Health Officers (CHO).…”