DETERMINANTS OF THE CHOICE OF HEALTHCARE SERVICES DURING AND AFTER PREGNANCY IN SOME SELECTED RURAL AREAS IN KADUNA.

Nigerian government in collaboration with donor agencies are making spirited effort to create awareness of the importance of antenatal care (ANC) most especially in rural areas. So that pregnant women will take ANC seriously. However, this has not yielded the desired result, hence, a study of this nature is a welcome development. Therefore, this studies focuses no investigating the determinants of the choice of healthcare services during and after pregnancy in some selected rural areas in Kaduna state. This was achieved through Focus Group Discussion (FGD) and Key In-depth Interview (KII) in the selected local government areas of Kaduna state. The qualitative data was transcript and analysed using content analysis method. The results show their knowledge about ANC, due to low literacy level and religious factor in most rural settlements visited. Furthermore, demand and supply side on ANC facilities are also poor and do not meet the minimum standard. The study concludes that demand and supply of ANC fall short of equilibrium, both are too low. Therefore the study recommended that government in collaboration with nongovernmental organization such as World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF should design and implement campaign/interventions to enhance the literacy level and advocacy to reduce the influence of religion in healthcare service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]