Family planning services are rendered at no cost in all clinics in Mdantsane. Mdantsane is situated in the Eastern Cape and falls under Amathole District Municipality. The high rate of adolescent pregnancy in the area raises a question as to whether the family planning services are adequate. This issue reflects on the quality of family planning service delivery. According to Roux (1995:94), a quality service is a safe, easily available and readily acceptable service, delivered by well trained family planning personnel through well planned programmes. Aims and Objectives: To assess the quality of family planning service delivery by health providers to adolescents; determine the opinions of adolescents regarding accessibility, friendliness of staff, privacy, confidentiality, reproductive health information and resources at Mdantsane clinics from June to July 2009. Method: A questionnaire was designed to collect data. The questionnaire was administered on the adolescents utilizing the reproductive health services at eleven primary health clinics in Mdantsane. A sample consisting of 110 adolescent youth between 19 and 24 years was selected by using random sampling. A response of “yes” will indicate that the participant is satisfied with the specific item, while a response of “no” will indicate dissatisfaction with that item. A specially designed spreadsheet was developed to analyze the data. Data was analyzed by using the Microsoft Excel 2007 Version 6. Results: The results from this research study suggest that there is a definite need for improvement of adolescent reproductive health services at Mdantsane clinics. It is clear that the current available maternal and child health programmes, school health services and reproductive health services are not able to meet the adolescent sexual and reproductive needs. Conclusion: The research findings from this study indicated the constraints to good quality family planning health care service delivery. Satisfaction responses from the five categories: health facility amenities, accessibility, staff characteristics, availability of sexual and reproductive health services and availability of educational material accessibility were mostly below 70%. The responses regarding the question on the “full information about the available contraceptives”showed the least level of satisfaction. Deficiencies in physical facilities and equipment, disruptions in supplies, insufficient information provided to clients and providers‟ insensitivity to the feelings and needs of the clients are issues that discourage adolescents from utilizing contraceptive services. Recommendations: Adolescents need a safe and supportive environment that offers information and skills to equip them on all aspects related to sexual and reproductive health issues. To satisfy adolescent reproductive needs, the following key elements should be improved: accessibility of reproductive health services, friendliness of clinic staff, availability of information about reproduction and sexuality and maintenance of issues regarding confidentiality and anonymity. Quality requires the presence of trained personnel in well-equipped clinics where clients are treated courteously. To avoid issues of courtesy bias, there is a need to conduct a similar survey utilizing alternative community settings, namely homes of participants or a school.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ufh/vital:11892 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Ndlebe, Siphokazi |
| Publisher | University of Fort Hare, Faculty of Science & Agriculture |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis, Masters, MSc (Nursing Science) |
| Format | 60 leaves; 30 cm, pdf |
| Rights | University of Fort Hare |
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