Abstract:

Maternal utilization has been low over the years in Kenya. Approaches to establish safe motherhood through promotion of health facility have been equally fronted. This study applied certain aspects of community education approach encompassing group discussion and community dialogue to provide a clear insight of how the approach is a vital tool. Community based cross sectional study was conducted in Kanamai sub-location, Kilifi County to recruit 232 women selected by simple random sampling technique. The data were collected using pre-tested semi-structured questionnaires and the collected data was coded, entered, cleaned, and analysed using R for Windows (version 4.0.3). Sixty-nine percent (69%) of women advocated for the delivery at the designated health facilities. Independent factors that were found to influence health facility based delivery in this study were being employed (OR = 12.42, 95% CI: 6.25 - 24.70, p<0.0001), having given birth to 3-4 children, (OR = 2.56, 95% CI: 6.25 - 24.70, p=0.0062) and rating of both group discussion (OR = 0.15, 95% CI: 0.03 -0.66, p=0.0041) and community dialogue (OR = 0.21, 95% CI: 0.08 - 0.59, p=0.0013) to be low. Leading by the example set by the government of offering free maternal services, engaging the key stakeholders through approaches such as group discussion and community dialogue could go a long way in increasing delivery in the health facilities thus tremendously lowering mortality rate for both the baby and the mother which could otherwise occur when the mother doesn’t get services of a specialized personnel.

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