Factors affecting antenatal care attendance in Soweto, Johannesburg: The three-delay model

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Factors affecting antenatal care attendance in Soweto, Johannesburg: The three-delay model
 
Creator Myburgh, Nellie Qwabi, Thabisile Shivambo, Lunghile Ntsie, Lerato Sokani, Andile Maixenchs, Maria Choge, Isaac Mahtab, Sana Dangor, Ziyaad Madhi, Shabir
 
Subject — antenatal care attendance; women; pregnancy; maternal mortality; infant mortality; public clinics; three-delay model
Description Background: Antenatal care remains critical for identifying and managing complications contributing to maternal and infant mortality, yet attendance among women in South Africa persists as a challenge.Aim: This study aimed to understand the challenges faced by women attending antenatal care in Soweto, Johannesburg, using the three-delay model.Setting: This study was conducted in Soweto, Johannesburg.Methods: An exploratory, descriptive and qualitative research design was used, and in-depth interviews were conducted with 10 pregnant women and four women who had recently given birth.Results: Findings indicate delays in seeking care due to factors such as pregnancy unawareness, waiting for visible signs, and fear of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) testing. Challenges such as transportation difficulties, distance to clinics, and facility conditions further impeded the initiation of antenatal care. Late initiation often occurred to avoid long waits, inadequate facilities, language barriers and nurse mistreatment.Conclusion: From this study, we learn that challenges such as unawareness of pregnancy, cultural notions of keeping pregnancy a secret, fear of HIV testing, long waiting lines, high cost of transportation fees, clinic demarcation, shortage of essential medicines, broken toilets and verbal abuse from nurses have delayed women from initiating antenatal care early in Soweto, Johannesburg.Contribution: Challenges of women with antenatal care attendance in South Africa must be addressed by implementing community-based health education interventions, institutionalising HIV psycho-social support services and improving quality of antenatal care services in public health facilities.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor University of the Witwatersrand Vaccines & Infectious Disease Analytics, Child Health and Mortality Prevention Surveillance, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Date 2024-06-14
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Qualitative Research
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/phcfm.v16i1.4333
 
Source African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 16, No 1 (2024); 9 pages 2071-2936 2071-2928
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/4333/7249 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/4333/7250 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/4333/7251 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/4333/7252
 
Coverage Soweto; Johannesburg; South Africa 2022 - 2023 Pregnant women
Rights Copyright (c) 2024 Nellie Myburgh, Thabisile Qwabi, Lunghile Shivambo, Lerato Ntsie, Andile Sokani, Maria Maixenchs, Isaac Choge, Sana Mahtab, Ziyaad Dangor, Shabir Madhi https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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