Reproductive Health Rights Awareness among Women of Reproductive Age 15-49 Years in Pumwani Maternity Hospital- Nairobi City County, Kenya

Abstract

Women’s health status is compromised not only by lack of knowledge of medical related issues but also by a breach in women’s reproductive rights. The status of women’s health is affected by multifaceted social, biological and cultural factors. These are interrelated and can only be addressed in a comprehensive way by creating awareness. The study focused on reproductive health rights awareness among women of reproductive age in Pumwani Maternity Hospital. The study aimed at assessing the reproductive health rights awareness among women of reproductive age attending the services. The study specifically focused on the influence of socio-demographic factors, health system factors and attitude towards awareness on reproductive health rights among respondents. The study adopted a cross-sectional study design with quantitative and qualitative data collection methods. A total of 189 respondents were sampled using systematic random sampling method and interviewed. The target population included women attending antenatal, family planning and post-natal clinic services. The researcher ensured all Ethical and Logistical requirements were met before embarking on data collection. Informed consent was sought from study participants and the purpose of the study was explained to respondents. Data was coded, cleaned and entered into Microsoft excel spread sheets and later exported to the statistical package for social sciences version 21.0 for analysis. Descriptive statistics were presented in frequency tables, graphs and pie-chats. Inferential statistics were analysed using chi square tests to show the association between study variables at 95% confidence interval and p-values of less than or equal to 0.05 considered significant. The study found out that 59.8% of respondents were aware of their reproductive health rights. Majority of socio-demographic factors such as age (p=0.024), highest level of education attained (p=0.003), marital status (p=0.001) and parity (p=0.003) were significantly associated with awareness on reproductive health rights. With regards to health system factors, there was an association between reproductive health related counselling (p=0.002), affordability of reproductive health services (p=0.001), source of advice on contraceptive usage (p=0.001) and awareness on reproductive health rights. About 55.6% of respondents had a negative attitude towards reproductive health rights and there was a significant statistical association between attitude (p=0.001) and awareness on reproductive health rights. The study concludes that majority of the respondents were aware of their reproductive health rights even though their attitude was negative among women seeking reproductive health services in Pumwani Maternity Hospital in Nairobi City County. These findings shall inform policy makers in health care on reproductive health issues thus increase reproductive health rights awareness.