Effect of Health Education on Utilization of Safe Motherhood Services among Women of Reproductive Age in Rivers-East Senatorial District

Proper utilization of safe motherhood services helps to improve maternal well-being, enhances healthy pregnancy and safe delivery outcomes thereby reducing maternal mortality. The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of health education on utilization of safe motherhood services among women of reproductive age in Rivers-East Senatorial District. The study adopted the quasi-experimental research design. The population for the study consisted of 567,861 women within the ages of 15-49 years. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to select a sample size of 400 for the study. The instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire with a reliability index of 0.75. Data was analysed using mean, standard deviation and eta square statistics to answer the research questions while t-test was used to test the hypothesis. The result of the study showed that health education had a significant effect on the utilization of safe motherhood service (eta= 0.39, p<0.05). The result of the study revealed that respondents in the intervention group had a mean score of 53.80, SD=10.26. It was concluded that health education had a significant large effect on the utilization of safe motherhood services among women in the study location. It was recommended amongst others that the State government in collaboration with the local government areas provide functional health education units in the health facilities and at community levels to make health education on maternal health a continuous activity in order to enhance the utilization of the services by women of reproductive age as a strategy to reduce maternal deaths. Also healthcare professionals should incorporate health education in their effort to promote the utilization of maternal healthcare services thereby improving the overall health and wellbeing of women.