Health Care Providers’ Attitudes Towards Pregnant Women with Disability at Selected Governmental Hospitals in Cape Coast Metropolis

Abstract

This paper examined the attitude of healthcare providers towards pregnant women with disability. The study employed concurrent mixed analytical procedure where both quantitative and qualitative approaches were employed. The paper used questionnaire and interview guide to collect the data. The study used a multi-stage sampling technique and operationalised using was cluster, stratified and simple random sampling techniques. A sample size of 170 healthcare professionals was used for the data collection while 10 expectant mothers with disabilities were used for the interview. 149 questionnaires were received and coded representing 86.47% response rate. The non-numerical data were analysed using content and thematic analysis. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) statistics was used to compare mean attitude scale score and interaction of background, exposure variables and professional status. Mean comparison and statistical significant was assessed using ANOVA statistics to understand the association between variables. It was found that although the healthcare professionals have often been dealing with expectant mothers with disabilities, they have very little training and the positive attitudinal value for women with disabilities is weak. Majority of the expectant mothers with disabilities had bad experiences with healthcare professionals. It is recommended that the curriculum for training healthcare professionals especially the nurses and midwives should adequately cater for how to manage cases of women with disabilities.

Keywords: Women with Disability, Healthcare Professionals, Healthcare, Maternal Healthcare and Expectant Mothers with Disabilities

DOI: 10.7176/JNSR/13-4-04

Publication date: February 28^th 2022