Assessment of women’s satisfaction with family planning service at public health facilities in Northwest Region of Ethiopia: a cross sectional study

BACKGROUND: Ethiopia is a Sub Saharan African country with an estimated contraceptive prevalence rate of 36% and 22% unmet need for family planning service among married women. Client satisfaction influences the use of Family Planning and other reproductive health services. There is limited information on satisfaction with family planning service among Family planning users particularly in the northern part of Ethiopia. Hence, this study aimed to provide information on client satisfaction and its determinant among women in Public Health facilities of Northwestern Ethiopia. METHODS: A Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted from March 1, 2017, to March 30, 2017. An exit interview using structured pretested questionnaire was conducted on randomly selected 490 women attending family planning service in Bahir Dar city, Public Health facilities of Northwest, Ethiopia. The data was cleaned, coded and entered into Epi info™ 7 statistical software and then exported and analyzed using SPSS Version 20 statistical software. A multivariable binary logistic regression model was fitted to identify factors associated with Client satisfaction. Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with the corresponding 95% Confidence Interval (CI) was calculated to show the strength of association. RESULTS: A total of 490 family planning service users were approached for an interview and making a response rate of 99.8%. The overall client satisfaction with the family planning services was found to be 66.1%. Clients who were merchants were more likely to be satisfied with the family planning service than government employees [AOR = 2.5, P-value = 0.007). In addition, house wife’s more likely to be satisfied with the family planning service than government employees AOR = 2.4, P-value = 0.007). Daily laborers were also found to be more likely to be satisfied with the FP service as compared with governmental employees AOR = 3.9, P-value = 0.007). New Family Planning user clients were more likely to be satisfied with the family planning service than repeat users [AOR = 2.3, P-value = 0.004). Family planning service waiting time also affects client satisfaction, in which those having awaiting time of less than half an hour’s (AOR = 9.7, (P-value =001), One to half an hour (AOR = 6.4, (P-value =001), One hour to two hours (AOR = 4.6, (P-value =001) were more likely to be satisfied with the family planning service delivered at the facility than those who had waited for more than two hours. In addition, those whose privacy was maintained during counseling were more likely to be satisfied with the family planning service delivered than whose privacy was not maintained (AOR = 3.2, P-Value = < 0.001). Those having convenient service hour were more likely to be satisfied with the family planning service delivered than those who don’t have convenient service hour (AOR = 2.4, p-value = 0.002). CONCLUSION: The finding of this study concludes that nearly two -third of the clients were satisfied with the family planning service delivered at Public Health facilities of Northwest of Ethiopia. New family planning service users, waiting time for the service, Maintaining privacy during counseling, having convenient service hour and occupational status of the clients were the predictors for client satisfaction with family planning service delivered at Public Health facilities in Bahir Dar city.