| Objectives This study aims at investigating reproductive health service utilization by rural married women of child-bearing age and its relationship with social and psychological factors including mainly personality, marital quality and behavior styles.Methods Personality and marriage quality were assessed using the concise IPIP-NEO inventory and OLSON Marital Quality Inventory respectively. Whlie data about behavior styles and service utilization were collected utilizing two structured questioninnaires developed and piloted by ourselfves respetively. Cluster sampling was employed in drawing 1221 married wowan farmers in child-bearing age from three counties in Anhui province. The inventories and questionnaires were administered by trained interviewers at the respondents'households. SPSS was used to analyze the data collected and perform descriptive, comparative analysis and multiple regression.Results (1)Social and psychological characters: a) The respondents got relatively higher mean scores (>70) on both of the dimensions of agreeableness and conscientiousness, but relatively lower mean scores (<55) on the dimensions of neuroticism and openness to experience; b) Young and well educated women had relatively higher scores on marital quality; c) Age was positively linked to scores on the dimensions of lovability of environment and lovability of self; education was negatively linked to lovability of environment but positively linked to lovability of self; while no statistically significant difference was found between different groups of education and ages on the dimension of lovability of other. (2) Reproductive health status: 70.4% of the 1221 rural women perceived reported more than one type of gynaecopathia symptoms within 6 weeks after their last laboring; 34.2% of them had been diagnosed with more than one type of gynaecopathia diseases during their life time; and 14.3%, reported sickness during the last two weeks; of all the 1170 rural women who had delivery history, 60.5% had more than one type of infection symptoms during their last puerperium. (3)Health Service Utilization: a) After onset of gynaecopathia symptoms, 36.7% of the women sought professional care, with 43.1% of the service-seeking happened after one week and 14.6%, within one day. While after onset of obstetric infection, 32.3% of them saw doctors, with 26.2% of the care-seeking occurred after one week and 48%, within one day. For those being sick during the last two weeks, 74.7% sought professional help, with 73.4% of the service utilization happened within one or two days. The main reason the respondents gave for not seeking professional care was perceived worthless. b) Township health centers, village and private clinics turned out to be the most commonly chosen service providers for all the health problems investigated. When faced with gynaecopathia symptoms, obstetric infection, and general sickness during the last two weeks, the proportion of women reported service seeking from city or county hospitals was 30.4%,17.0% and 7.7% respectively. c) With regard to the utilization of perinatal health services, the proportion of women undergone antenatal examinations accounted for 72.0% and the average times of examinations was 3.13; while the proportion of women with postpartum visits was 24.2% and the average times of visits was 0.49. Half of the respondents'last childbirth was delivered at their households. d) As for compliance with physicians'order, 87.0% of the women reported taking all the medications prescribed, and 51.3%, made follow-up visits as suggested by their physicians. (4) Factors relating to service utilization: Multivariable stepwise regression analysis revealed that: a) women who were more younger, more educated about reproductive health, had more perceived symptoms and higher scores on the dimension of lovability of other were more likely to visit physicians after occurrence of gynaecopathia symptoms; women with more perceived symptoms, better knowledge of reproductive health and more enjoyable sex life were more likely to seek care form higher-level providers; women with older age and more open personality were more likely to visit lower-level clinics. b) Education of the respondents and recency of their parturition were positively linked to the level of care they sought for obstetric symptoms. Open personality was positively related to level of providers; while enjoyableness of sex life, positively linked to timeliness of care seeking. c) Recencey of parturition, education, partner equality, knowledge about reproductive health, partner personality harmonization, openness and agreeableness personalities were all facilitating factors for antenatal examinations, while lovability of self and age were barriers to the same service; Recency of parturition, education and partner equality were promoting factors for higher-level delivery service utilization; yet age was an inhibitive factor in the same regard; Rrecency of parturition, partner equality and education facilitated postpartum visits.Conclusions Reproductive health status and health service utilization among married women of childbearing age in rural Anhui need further improvement. Statistically significant relationships were found between service utilization and personality, marital quality and behavior styles. These findings shed new lights on future researches and interventions.
|
PDF Full Text Request