Clients Satisfaction with Family Planning Service and Associated Factors among Public Health Facilities Found in Wolkite Town Gurage Zone, Central Ethiopia Region

Abstract

Background: Client satisfaction is a basic and complementary aspect of the service management strategies. It draws the road for service improvement measures and can directly reflect the health services utilization rates. Client satisfaction with family planning service significantly influence the uptake and continuation of family planning methods. As the quality of family planning service has been measured by clients’ satisfaction, assessing the level of clients’ satisfaction and identifying factors associated with it is crucial and could be used to enhance the quality of the service. Objective: To assess clients Satisfaction with family planning service and associated factors among public health facilities found in Wolkite town Gurage Zone, Central Ethiopia Region 2023. Methods: Facility-based quantitative cross-sectional study design supplemented with qualitative method was employed from March 01- June 30 /2023. The family planning users (i.e.402 clients’) were selected using a systematic sampling technique from purposively and randomly selected 3 public health facilities found in the town. The data collection tool has four parts; the exit interview, facility audit checklist, service provision observational checklist, and an in-depth interview guide. Quantitative data was cleaned, coded, and entered into Epi Data version 3.1 and then exported to SPSS version 23 for further analysis. Multi-variable binary logistic regression analysis was done to determine the association of independent variable with the outcome variable. Descriptive statistics like mean, standard deviation, and percentage were calculated and results were presented in the form of tables, charts & figures. Adjusted odds ratio along with 95% CI with a P-value of < 0.05 was considered to identify the associated factors of clients’ satisfaction. Data from the in-depth interviews were transcribed, translated, and categorized into similar themes by manual thematic analysis. Result: A total of 402 study participants were involved in the quantitative study making a response rate of 95.2%. The level of clients’ satisfaction with the family planning service was 52 %. Age of the respondents’ [AOR=3.95, CI: (2.19, 7.07)], marital status [AOR=4.61, CI: (2.08,10.21)], level of knowledge about FP [AOR=2.58, CI: (1.52,4.37)], distance of the facility [AOR=1.90, CI: (1.08,3.31)], service waiting time [AOR=4.40, CI: (2.38,8.16)], health care provider treatment [AOR=3.45, CI: (1.79,6.62)], privacy [AOR=2.51, CI: (1.28,4.92)], waiting time [AOR=4.4, CI: (2.38,8.16)], time given for discussion [AOR=1.87, CI: (1.03,3.39)], and the method of choice [AOR=4.87, CI: (2.76,8.58)] were found to be significantly associated with client satisfaction. From the in-depth interview lack of family planning methods and commodities, inadequate service room, lack of IEC materials & guidelines, inadequate training, and staff turnover were found as major themes associated with the provision of unsatisfying family planning service provision. Conclusion: The overall level of client satisfaction with family planning services was low. Thus, quality improvement efforts and activities should be designed by the health facilities and town health department to improve clients’ satisfaction and enhance the quality of family planning services.