Correlates of Primary Healthcare Services Utilization among Women in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State: Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour

Primary healthcare provides basic and essential services to individuals and families globally. Despite its relevance, its utilization remains suboptimal. This research focused into the correlates of primary healthcare services utilization among women in Rivers East Senatorial District, Rivers State. Three research topics and hypotheses guided the investigation. A descriptive correlational research design was adopted with a population consisting of 133,545 women in Rivers East Senatorial District. The sample size of 1596 was selected using a multistage sampling procedure. Data was collected using a standardised questionnaire that had a reliability coefficient of 0.80. The mean and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) at the 0.05 alpha level were used for the analysis. The result revealed that, utilization of PHC services amongst women in Rivers East Senatorial District was determined highly by subjective norms (2.83 ± 0.83) and attitude of health workers (2.96 ± 0.88) except knowledge of primary health care services which had a low relationship (r = 0.31) with the utilization of PHC services among women in Rivers East Senatorial District. The result moreover demonstrated that there existed a noteworthy correlation between variables such as subjective norms (N = 1549, r = 0.49, p = 0.00), attitude of health workers (N = 1549, r = 0.23, p = 0.00) and primary healthcare services utilization among women in Rivers East Senatorial District. The result additionally demonstrated that there was no meaningful connection between knowledge of PHC services (N = 1549, r = 0.31, p = 0.89) and PHC services utilization among women in Rivers East Senatorial District. This study concluded that knowledge is not a significant factor to determine PHC services utilization and the correlates of PHC services utilization among women in Rivers East Senatorial District were identified as subjective norms, and attitude of health care workers. Among other things, it was advised that, women should prioritize their health over family and societal norms that are not favourable to their health.

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