Socio-Cultural Determinants of Utilization of Health Facilities among Women Attending Antenatal Care Clinic in Ota Nigeria.

The utilization of health care services by women during pregnancy and child birth is low in Nigeria, with only 35% of delivery taking place in health facility and 62 % of births take place at home. This situation not only leads to high maternal mortality in but puts Nigeria in the second position of countries with highest maternal mortality, just after India. Reduction in maternal deaths has been hindered not only by the absence of good health facilities but by socio-cultural factors prevalent within the society. This paper examined the socio-cultural factors which are least studied, especially which encourage male domination and lower status of women. Respondents consist of 458 women attending antenatal care clinic in State Hospital Ota were randomly selected and interviewed with the aid of questionnaire instrument. The data generated were analyzed using SPSS. The findings showed family type, respondent’s education, perception of cost of antenatal service, treatment place decision, husband perception of pregnancy, respondents dependency on husband for health facility visitation and service satisfaction are significant (P= .000, .023, .001, .005, .000, .000, .000) towards use of health care services by mothers. Recommendations were provided for improving maternal health delivery services in study area and beyond.