Maternal Health Education and Promotion: Perceptions from Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region, Ghana

Abstract

The study argues for effective integration of health education and communication strategies and their application within existing inter-related approaches to improve maternal health education in the Wa Municipality of the Upper West Region of Ghana. The study design was mainly descriptive. Systematic sampling was employed to select fifteen health facilities for the study. In-depth interviews and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were used to collect data. The study found that though majority (sixty-five percent) of the respondents indicated that radio discussion served as a practical strategy to improve maternal health, thirty-five percent of the respondents, however, noted that programmes on radio and television hardly used bottom-up methods to educate people, especially pregnant illiterate women. The study concludes that existing health education methods need to be strengthened through integration with bottom-up communication methods. The study recommends an integrated approach to educating pregnant women on their health in the Wa Municipality.