Analytical Review of the Effect of Demographic Characteristics on Maternal Health Outcomes and Ambul Ance Referral Network Intervention in Wajir County, Kenya

Abstract

Maternal health is a global public health concern. Worldwide, every year more than half million women die in childbirth, mainly from haemorrhage, infection, and complications of abortion. About 99% of these maternal mortalities occur in Sub-Saharan countries including Kenya. Majority of these deaths are attributed to weak health systems, geographical location and demographic characteristics of the mother, among many other deficits including delay in accessing maternal health care. In Kenya, ambulance referral services have been provided to reduce the delay in accessing maternal health care for improved maternal health outcomes. However, their performance remains largely unevaluated. Therefore, this study was undertaken to perform analytical review of the demographic characteristics on maternal health outcomes and ambulance referral network intervention in Wajir County, Kenya. This was a longitudinal retro-prospective study, specifically to determine the demographic characteristics, cost and effectiveness of ambulance referral networks on maternal health outcomes. Data was collected from ambulance logbooks, patient registers, logistics records, and maternal death surveillance records. A population of 623 records of mothers who had used ambulance during referral process within the county was achieved during sourcing data for this study from records. Thus secondary data containing both quantitative data and qualitative data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics used included percentages, frequency, and mean. Inferential statistics used was chi-square. To determine effects of demographic characteristics on maternal health outcomes, multinomial regression analysis was employed. Results were presented in tables and figures. The results indicate that demographic characteristics had significant effect at 5% level of significant. Level of education for the mother was found to affect all maternal health outcomes significantly at p<0.05.Therefore to reduce infant and maternal mortality rate in Wajir County, the county should improve demographic characteristics of the mother by providing formal education to the mother. Thus, from this finding, to improve maternal and infant health outcomes, its recommended that women in Wajir should be educated.