Prevalence and socioeconomic determinants of awareness and visitation of community clinic among ever married women: evidence from Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey, 2017-2018

Abstract

Objectives: Bangladesh has made remarkable progress in improving the population's health, but maternal health and healthcare facilities are still in a vulnerable situation. This study aims to investigate the prevalence and determinants of awareness and visitation of community clinics (CCs) in Bangladesh.

Design: A population-based cross-sectional study.

Setting: The data were collected from the most recent Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey conducted in 2017-2018.

Participants: This study's participants are 18 893 women aged 15-49 years throughout all administrative regions.

Primary and secondary outcome measures: The outcomes are awareness and visitation of CCs, defined as if women are aware and visit of CCs.

Materials and methods: Descriptive statistics, bivariate and multivariate binary logistics analysis were used to determine the prevalence and associated factors of awareness and visitation of CCs.

Results: The prevalence of awareness and visitation to CCs were 60.26% and 15.92%, respectively. The result of the multivariate analysis revealed that higher education, division and higher number of children were significantly positively associated, whereas the richest wealth index was significantly negatively associated with both awareness and visitation to CCs. Furthermore, the urban residence was negatively and respondent involvement in currently working was positively significantly related to awareness of CCs. Moreover, male household heads and exposure to media were significantly positively related to visitation to CCs.

Conclusion: The study result highlights that more than half of the women were aware of CCs however, the CCs' visit rates were comparatively low. Priority-based public health programmes for women through community health workers are urgently needed to increase the awareness and visitation of CCs.

Keywords: Epidemiology; Health policy; PRIMARY CARE; PUBLIC HEALTH.