Factors Affecting Utilization Of Primary Health Care Facilities

This study was carried out on the factors affecting utilization of health care services using Moro LGA, kwara state as case study. To achieve this 4 research questions were formulated. The survey design was adopted and the simple random sampling techniques were employed in this study. The population size comprise of selected residents in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State. In determining the sample size, the researcher conveniently selected 123 residents while 100 were returned and validated. Self-constructed and validated questionnaire was used for data collection. The collected and validated questionnaires were analyzed using frequency tables and percentage. The result of the findings reveals that the extent to which health care services available in Moro LGA, kwara state is low, more so, the factors affecting the utilization of health care services in Moro LGA, kwara state include; poverty, ability and propensity to use services, geographic area of residence race and ethnicity, disability status, poor availability of health care facilities, and long waiting in the health care centres. And inefficient organization of services or work processes; insufficient equipment, supplies, or infrastructure; inadequate staffing; and low health worker motivation/know-do gap are among many others the causes for health facility inefficiencies in Moro LGA, kwara state. In regard to the findings, the study recommends that there is a need to ensure that patients have easy access to health care by ensuring that health personnel are available when needed. Long waiting times should be discouraged by identifying areas in the health care delivery system that is prone to causing long waiting times with a view to developing alternate health systems that will eliminate long hours of stay in public facilities. This can be achieved by involving consumers of health care in government facilities in decision making process to make the facility more customers oriented. Also, periodic evaluation of the quality of care provided by the health facilities should be conducted where clients of the facility are asked to rate the quality of care. And efforts to further upgrade medical equipment and associated workforce skills are needed to sustainably increase access to and utilization. In the same manner, the cost of health care services should be reduced in other for the residents to have access to it as at when needed.