TY - JOUR TT - KNOWLEDGE OF SOCIO-DEMOGRAPHIC FACTORS INFLUENCING HEALTH SERVICE USAGE AMONG PREGNANT MOTHERS IN NIGERIA AU - Azuh, Dominic AU - Azuh, Akunna AU - Fasina, Fagbeminiyi AU - Adekola, Paul AU - Amoo, Emmanuel AU - Oladosun, Muyiwa PY - 2017 DA - December DO - 10.18769/ijasos.370661 JF - IJASOS- International E-journal of Advances in Social Sciences JO - IJASOS PB - OCERINT International Organization Center of Academic Research WT - DergiPark SN - 2411-183X SP - 1043 EP - 1050 VL - 3 IS - 9 KW - Knowledge KW - maternal mortality KW - usage KW - socio-demographic factors KW - antenatal care N2 - Poor knowledge ofsocio-demographic factors limit access and utilization of health care servicesamong pregnant women. The objectives of this paper are to examine the factorswhich influence health care usage and to suggest policy guidelines to boost theuse of healthcare particularly among antenatal women. The study covers five (5)rural political wards of Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area in Ogun State,Nigeria. Astratified sampling technique was adopted in selecting the respondents who wereever married women in child bearing age (15-49) years who had at least onelive-birth in the last three years preceding the survey.  Stratified sampling technique wasemployed because the study was based on different political wards. It enabledmore consistent responses within each political ward. This technique consistsin taking random samples within each selected ward and combining it withsamples proportionate to the size of each ward to ensure representative of thepopulation for wider generalization of findings. Onthe whole, 260 female respondents were randomly selected from five wards out ofthe sixteen wards. Data were gathered through questionnaire instrumentand analyzed statistically using statistical packagefor social sciences. Regression analysis showed that treatment decisionand distance to health facility are negatively related to health program usageby pregnant mothers. Educational attainments, payment of treatment bills,respondent’s age and husband’s perception about pregnancy are positively associatedto antennal care (ANC) use. Also,since the F- statistics calculated is greater than the F- tabulated therebyvalidating the hypothesis that the socio-demographic characteristics of therespondents are significantly related to the health program usage by pregnantmothers. The above findings show that education, husband’s perception aboutpregnancy, treatment decision and payment of treatment cost weigh more on theuse of modern health care services. Hence,Costsalleviation for women seeking antenatal care and delivery services should beput in place to encourage women to use health services and government shouldgive priority to women education and empowerment. 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