The Nature of Receiving Obstetric Care among Rural Women in Northern Bangladesh

Abstract

This study is a predominantly qualitative scrutiny in the field of medical sociology to explore the nature of receiving obstetric care of the women who gave birth within one year during the study period. The study also seeks to assess the relative role of ‘pre-disposing factors’ (socio-economic and demographic status) and ‘enabling factors’ (available health services including social network) in determining women’s nature of receiving obstetric care. The 'mixed method' has been employed to collect data from 104 women of two villages of Sadullahpur upazilla under Gaibandha district of Bangladesh. A number of health personnel (15) have also been included in the study. The study explored the fact that financial factor remains as the prime determinant of shaping peoples’ nature of receiving health care but sometimes other factor, for instance, nature of household heads’ occupation plays dominant role than that of the economic status. Similarly it is not a universal fact that the higher the education levels the higher the quality/quantity of receiving health care. Basically receiving obstetric care is not an independent issue rather it is interrelated with various factors. The factors affecting the nature of receiving health services are diverse and they play different roles in the case of different individuals or different segment of the population but availability of services around them definitely have great impact on remoulding their nature of receiving health services irrespective of their socio-economic background.