Prevalence and Associated Factors of Client Satisfaction with Antenatal Care Services Among Antenatal Care Attendants in Ethiopia: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

An important indicator of the quality of antenatal care (ANC) is the satisfaction of the client. Despite this, women in Ethiopia are very dissatisfied with the quality of their ANC. In Ethiopia, a systematic review was conducted to estimate the pooled prevalence of client satisfaction (CS) with ANC services.

METHODS

Only articles published in English were included in this review. Medline/PubMed, Web of Science, Google Scholar, Scopus, Ethiopian University Repository Online, and the Cochrane Library are the main databases. The review included cross-sectional studies written in English that met the inclusion requirements. Using a random effects model, the overall rate of CS with prenatal care was calculated. Additionally, Egger's test and funnel plots were used to examine publication bias. STATA version 14 was used to perform all statistical analyses.

RESULTS

This review included 20 studies involving 8447 women attending prenatal care services. In Ethiopia, the overall customer satisfaction rate with prenatal care services was 60.42% (95% CI [51.33.99, 69.51]; I2 = 98.9%, P < 0.001). Previous ANC follow-up, iron and folic acid supplementation, and the last planned pregnancy were statistically associated with CS.

CONCLUSION AND GLOBAL HEALTH IMPLICATIONS

In Ethiopia, 60% of women are satisfied with their ANC. This shows that 40% of women are dissatisfied with the prenatal care provided by healthcare professionals. This will lead to a low utilization of ANC services throughout the country. Therefore, the Ethiopian government, especially the Ministry of Health and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), must take measures to address this severity and improve identified factors.