Understanding why child welfare clinic attendance and growth of children in the nutrition surveillance programme is below target: lessons learnt from a mixed methods study in Ghana

BACKGROUND: Growth monitoring and promotion (GMP) programmes promote not only child health but serve as a service delivery strategy to enhance coverage for other crucial nutrition-specific interventions. This study compared community-based and facility-based GMP programme with respect to attendance rates, children’s nutritional status, caregivers’ satisfaction with services received and perceptions of service providers and users on factors influencing utilization. METHODS: Explanatory sequential mixed methods study conducted in Ga West municipality, Ghana. It comprised 12-month secondary data analysis using growth monitoring registers of 220 infants aged 0–3 months enrolled in two community-based (CB = 104) and two facility-based (FB = 116) child welfare clinics; cross-sectional survey (exit interview) of 232 caregiver-child pairs accessing CB (n = 104) and FB services (n = 116); and in-depth interviews with 10 health workers and 15 mothers. Quantitative data were analyzed through Fisher’s exact, unpaired t-tests, and logistic regression at 95% confidence interval (CI) using SPSS version 20. Qualitative data were analyzed by thematic content analysis using ATLAS.ti 7.0. RESULTS: Mean annual attendance to both programmes was similar with an average of six visits per year. Only 13.6% of caregiver-child pairs attained more than nine visits in the 12-months period. At least 60% of children in both programs had improved weight-for-age z-scores (WAZ) scores during participation. Predictors for improved WAZ were being underweight at baseline (AOR:11.1, 95%CI:4.0–31.0), annual attendance of at least six visits (AOR:2.2, 95%CI:1.1–4.1) and meeting the Ghana Health Service target of nine visits (AOR:4.65, 95%CI:1.4–15.1). Compared to 31.5% CB users, significant proportion of FB caregivers (57.4%) were visited at home. Half were dissatisfied with services received (CB:55.6% vs. FB:62.0%, p = 0.437) citing long waiting times, negative staff attitude and extortions of money. Regarding perceptions on factors hindering service utilization, emerged themes included extremes of maternal age, high parity, postpartum socio-cultural beliefs and practices, financial commitments, undue delays, unprofessional staff behaviours, high premium on vaccination and general misconceptions about the programme. CONCLUSION: The association of increased attendance with improved growth reaffirms the need to strengthen primary healthcare systems to improve service delivery; sensitize caregivers on contribution of growth monitoring and promotion to early child development; and increase contacts through home visits.