A cross-sectional study on utilisation of maternal health care services in the rural area of Kanchipuram District, Tamil Nadu

Background: Maternal Mortality and Morbidity remains high even though several national programmes exists for improving maternal and child health in India. This could be related to several factors, an important one being is non-utilisation or poor utilisation of antenatal health-care services, especially among rural population. Objectives: To estimate the utilisation of maternal health care services in the rural area. To assess the factors influencing their utilisation of maternal health care services. Materials and Methods: The study was carried out as a cross-sectional study among 284 mothers in the field practice area of Sree Balaji Medical College and Hospital, Chennai, whom were selected using simple random sampling technique. The data regarding the utilisation were obtained using a pre-tested, semi-structured questionnaire. Results: In this study 35% were illiterates, nearly 60.21% have got registered with the Government sector, 59.51% of the mothers had four or more antenatal visits, 64.08% have received two doses of tetanus toxoid, and 73.24% have taken iron and folic acid tablets, proportional of women who received full antenatal care is 41.2%. The factors which were identified to have statistically significant association with better utilisation of antenatal health services were age >30 years, higher educational status, skilled workers, those having their first child and higher socioeconomic class. Conclusion: From this study, it had been identified the fact that antenatal health care services were not utilised fully by the population in the rural area of Kanchipuram district. So, strengthening of awareness regarding the maternal health care services and its importance of reducing the maternal mortality and morbidity is still required in rural area of Tamil Nadu.