Pattern of utilization of obstetric services in health insurance hospitals in Alexandria

ABSTRACT

The present study was conducted to investigate the pattern of utilization of hospital OB services by the health insured working women in Alexandria. Data were collected from a representative sample of medical records of working women admitted to OB department at the Health Insurance hospitals [Gamal and Karmouz] during 1987, as well as from medical records of house-wives admitted to El-Mouhafza hospital [a Ministry of Health hospital] during the same period. The results indicated that the pattern of utilization of hospital OB services by health insured working women in Alexandria did not differ so much from of a non-working population, where women belonging to either group were uniformally admitted through days of the week; mostly during the day hours; they were admitted for either child-birth, abortion, antenatal care or postnatal care in that order of frequency; with no difference between working and housewife groups regarding hospitalization for abortion or the cardinal conditions for which the pregnant women seeked hospital antenatal care; and those admitted for delivery, whether working or not, gave rise to normal deliveries, instrumental and Caesarean deliveries came in the second and third order. On the other hand, the two groups differed in that, OB beds affiliated to health insurance hospitals seem to be run more appropriately than those of other hospitals in Alexandria and working women, in general, were kept in the OB department for a relatively longer periods than non-working women