contrast to other studies on the use of
ANC, a study to evaluate the utilisation
of antenatal care at the Provincial
Specialist Hospital, Mongomo, Guinea
Equatoria found higher levels of
education generally improved ANC
attendance14; Saseendran Pallikadavath
et al. in a study carried out in
Bangladesh also found women with a
secondary school education or more
were more likely to attend ANC than
women with primary school education
or less. women with higher levels of
education attending ANC during
pregnancy11.The authors explained
that this may be due to more educated
women with higher awareness of the
importance of antenatal care 14The
lack of influence of education in our
study might be might be due to the fact
that there is similar level of awareness
on the importance of antenatal care
across the different levels of education
in Ibadan.
In this study the participation of
women in taking decisions concerning
their health did not have a significant
effect on the use of antenatal care service.
This finding is consistent with other
studies that have examined the influence
of women's autonomy on various health
outcomes. A study which used data from a
maternal health study carried out in the
slums of Nairobi, Kenya found no
significant effect of women's participation
in decision making concerning their health
on the utilization of maternal health
services 15; a study in Nepal also found
that the influences of women's
involvement in decision-making regarding
their own health or large purchases on
antenatal care attendance were rather
weak16. However, Bloom et al found a
conflicting result on the influence of
women’s participation in making decisions
about their health when their findings
demonstrated that women's autonomy
was a major determinant of maternal
health care utilization among urban poor
to middle-income women in a North Indian
city