رقیه علی بابایی

Technical quality of health care, compared with whatever is presented on the basis of scientific evidence as a standard service, is an important aspect of the quality in health services and everything that customer receives. The purpose of this study was to assess the technical quality of prenatal care according to the standards of the Ministry of Health from the perspective of pregnant women at Shahid Chamran Health Centers in Tabriz.

This was a cross-sectional study based on CQMH model. Forty pregnant women were selected randomly from the women who referred to Shahid Chamran Health Centers. We used standard questionnaire for collecting data which its validity has been tested and its reliability was confirmed. (Cronbach's alpha,. 952)

The findings of the study showed that the highest level of compliance with the standard was the examining of women and listening to fetal heartbeat (16.7%) in the clinical examination. Regarding the prenatal care standard, the highest level of compliance was in oral health education (6.8%) which is 80% lower than the standard and 13.3% higher than the standard. These findings also indicated that education about bleeding and spotting is 90% lower than standard. Prescribing pharmaceutical supplements was higher than standard. In part of paraclinical services, the highest level of compliance with standard was the number of blood tests (50%) that was 6.7% lower than standard and 43.3% higher than standard.

A significant proportion of pregnant women statements indicated the underuse and overuse of the standard which leads to a need for indispensable changes in order to improve the quality of prenatal care according to the standards of the Ministry of Health. Standards were in poor condition at the clinical examinations and prenatal care educations fields which require appropriate intervention based on the results of this study.

Quality study is very important given that the issue of quality is a great health challenge in most communities. Satisfaction of service''s recipients accounts for a main part in this regard and it is an important tool to measure quality of health and medical services. This study aimed at measuring the quality of the services provided by family physician team from recipients'' perspective.

Present descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted in autumn 2009 in Ajabshir city. Study population included all the service recipients of family physician and the sample comprised of 140 individuals selected by random classification method. Data collection instruments were researcher designed questionnaires that measured 9 aspects of quality. Collected data were analyzed using statistical tests by SPSS 15.

Mean score for quality of services provided by family physicians was 45. 17±11. 16 and satisfaction rate from quality of these services was 10 percent. 35. 7% of the subjects were dissatisfied with the services. Among the studied indices، efficiency had the highest mean score of 64. 3±13. 4 and the highest satisfaction rate (70. 7%). On the other hand، the lowest mean score (28. 4 ±12. 3) and satisfaction rate (0%) was related to availability.

Performance of some services provided by family physician was found to be poor and level of quality was not desirable. Planning to improve some indices such as «availability» and «amenities» by authorities can improve quality of services provided by family physicians and satisfaction among services'' recipients.