Edward Bbaale
Visiting Fellow, Centre for Global Development, Washington DC, USA.
Australas Med J. 2011;4(9):516-26. doi: 10.4066/AMJ.2011.849. Epub 2011 Sep 30.
Uganda records an inadequate utilisation of antenatal care programmes. The study set out to investigate the factors associated with the use of antenatal care content to inform policy makers of the pertinent factors that need to be influenced by policy.
Data for the study was taken from a nationally representative Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) 2006. The study employed both descriptive and community fixed effects approaches to examine the factors associated with the use of antenatal care content in Uganda.
On average, only 16% of women used the full content of antenatal care. Only 12% of women had a urine sample taken, 28% a blood sample taken, and 53% their blood pressure measured. Almost two-thirds of women (63%) took iron supplements, 77% had their weight measured, and 27% were given drugs for intestinal parasites. The utilisation of the content of care was significantly associated with education of the mother and her partner, wealth status, location disparities, timing and frequency of antenatal visits, nature of facility visited, access to media, family planning, and utilisation of professional care.
Efforts are needed to educate girls beyond secondary level, establish village outreach clinics with qualified staff to attract the hard to reach women in the rural areas, and facilitate antenatal care utilisation irrespective of the ability to pay.
乌干达记录显示产前保健项目的利用率不足。该研究旨在调查与产前保健内容使用相关的因素，以便向政策制定者通报需要政策影响的相关因素。
该研究的数据取自具有全国代表性的2006年乌干达人口与健康调查（UDHS）。该研究采用描述性和社区固定效应方法来研究乌干达与产前保健内容使用相关的因素。
平均而言，只有16%的女性使用了全部产前保健内容。只有12%的女性进行了尿液样本采集，28%进行了血液样本采集，53%测量了血压。近三分之二的女性（63%）服用了铁补充剂，77%测量了体重，27%接受了肠道寄生虫药物治疗。保健内容的利用率与母亲及其伴侣的教育程度、财富状况、地区差异、产前检查的时间和频率、就诊机构的性质、媒体接触、计划生育以及专业护理的使用显著相关。
需要做出努力，对中学以上的女孩进行教育，设立配备合格工作人员的乡村外展诊所，以吸引农村地区难以接触到的女性，并促进产前保健的利用，而不论其支付能力如何。
