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Healthcare provider's attitude towards disability and experience of women with disabilities in the use of maternal healthcare service in rural Nepal.

Devkota, HR; Murray, E; Kett, M; Groce, N; (2017) Healthcare provider's attitude towards disability and experience of women with disabilities in the use of maternal healthcare service in rural Nepal. Reprod Health , 14 (1) , Article 79. 10.1186/s12978-017-0330-5. Green open access

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Women with disabilities are less likely to receive maternal healthcare services compared to women without disabilities. While few studies have reviewed healthcare experience of women with disabilities, no studies have been conducted to understand provider's attitude towards disability in Nepal, yet the attitude and behaviour of healthcare providers may have a significant influence on aspects of care and the use of service by women with disabilities. This study examines healthcare provider's attitudes towards disability and explores the experience of women with disabilities in maternal healthcare service utilization during pregnancy and childbirth. METHOD: The study used mixed method approach. An attitude survey was conducted among 396 healthcare providers currently working in public health facilities in Rupandehi district of Nepal. For additional insight, eighteen in-depth interviews with women with disabilities who used maternal healthcare services in a healthcare facility within the study district in their last pregnancy were undertaken. The Attitude Towards Disabled Persons (ATDP) scale score was used to measure the attitudes of healthcare providers. For quantitative data, univariate and multivariate analysis using ANOVA was used to understand the association between outcome and independent variables and qualitative analysis generated and described themes. RESULTS: Mean ATDP score among healthcare providers (78.52; SD = 14.75), was low compared to the normative score of 100 or higher. Nurses/auxiliary nurse midwives obtained the highest mean score (85.59, SD = 13.45), followed by general clinical health workers (Mean score = 82.64, SD 15.10). The lowest score was obtained by Female Community Health Volunteers (FCHV) (Score = 73.75, SD = 13.40) (P < 0.001). Younger providers were more positive compared to older age groups (P < 0.001). Similarly, providers working in urban health facilities compared to those working in rural health facilities, and non-Dalit providers compared to Dalit providers reported more positive attitudes towards disability (P < 0.05). However, there were no significant differences in ATDP mean scores between those who had or had not previously provided services for women with disabilities. The mean score difference between those who received disability training and who did not was also found statistically insignificant (P > 0.05). This may reflect the small number of individuals, who have had training on disability thus far, or the nature or quality of the training currently available. The majority of qualitative interview participants perceived providers to have the negative attitude with poor knowledge, skills and preparation for providing care to persons with disabilities. Few participants perceived the providers as kind, respectful, caring or helpful. CONCLUSION: Overall, provider's attitude towards disability was found to be negative with poor knowledge and skills about providing services. This may have adversely impact maternal healthcare service utilization by women with disabilities. More organized, effective training for healthcare providers is required through on-going mainstream efforts to develop favorable attitudes towards disability. Further research on this subject is also needed.

Type: Article
Title: Healthcare provider's attitude towards disability and experience of women with disabilities in the use of maternal healthcare service in rural Nepal.
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1186/s12978-017-0330-5
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12978-017-0330-5
Language: English
Additional information: © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Keywords: Attitude, Disability, Healthcare providers, Maternal health, Nepal
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1566568
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