Development of strategies to improve health care services for young people in East Gojjam zone, Ethiopia

Abstract

Proper health service provision for young people aged 15-24 years (young people) remains a challenge in East Gojjam because of different factors. Literatures indicate that even though there is rapid population growth in developing nations including Ethiopia, appropriate health service provision for this ever-growing population remains challenging. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the health care services provision for young people in East Gojjam Zone, Ethiopia, and to use the findings to develop strategies to enhance the utilisation, coverage, and quality of the health services for young people in East Gojjam Zone, Ethiopia. To this end a convergent parallel mixed method was used as a research design. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to collect, analyse and interpret data. Quantitative data was collected from 418 respondents that were randomly selected from the study population. Four focus group discussions and eleven in-depth interviews were conducted to collect qualitative data from the participants that were selected purposively. There were demographic and socio-economic, socio-cognitive, and institutional variables investigated quantitatively and qualitatively. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were applied to analyse the data. The quantitative findings were triangulated with qualitative ones to ensure reliability of the research. Both quantitative and qualitative results exhibited gaps in health service utilisation and its quality for 15-24-year-olds in East Gojjam Zone, Ethiopia. Based on these findings, strategies had been developed, to enhance the quality and utilisation of health services for young people, to overcome the challenges aforementioned. Recommendations were made to improve strategic approaches at all levels of health service delivery. From these findings, the most important recommendations were forwarded to the relevant authorities to combat the challenges and improve the quality, utilisation and coverage of health services for young people in East Gojjam Zone, Ethiopia.