Utilization of Primary Health Care Services in Jaba Local Government Area of Kaduna State Nigeria

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Primary health care was designed to provideaccessible health care for all. However, most primary health carefacilities are in various states of disrepair, catering for less than20% of potential patients in the population. This study wasdesigned to investigate the utilisation of primary health careservices in Jaba Local Government Area of Kaduna State Nigeria.METHODS: The study employed a cross-sectional study designconducted among 383 respondents utilising simple randomsampling techniques. A pretested semi-structured questionnairewas administered to obtain information from respondents, whiledescriptive statistics was used to analyse the data.RESULTS: The results show that almost all of the respondents,333(97.90%), were aware of the existence of primary health careservices in their community. Furthermore, the majority of therespondents, 304(89.40%), utilized primary health care serviceswhile 293(86.20%) and 212(62.40%) were satisfied with the amountof charges for services and the supply of drugs respectively.According to the respondent, weak services in primary health careincludes; personal hygiene and nutritional education, managementof chronic diseases and cancer screening. Factors that influencethe utilization of primary health care services according to therespondents were availability of trained personnel (AOR=1.82895% CI=0.410-1.672), attitude of staffs (AOR=1.114 95%CI=0.527-2.355), waiting times (AOR=1.110 95% CI=0.584-2.224)and availability of diagnostic services (AOR=0.951 95% CI=0.472-1.918).CONCLUSION: The study highlighted the weaknesses in some ofthe services offered at the various primary health centres and thefactors which can hinder the residents from patronizing primaryhealth care services.