Bottlenecks Analysis in the Intervention of Improving Maternal Health in Rural Areas of Tanzania: A Convergent Mixed-Method Approach

Background: Achieving universal health coverage for maternal health (MH) requires a health system that ensures the availability, accessibility, acceptability, and effective use of services. The study aimed to identify bottlenecks that hinder project outcomes of MH in the rural districts of Tanzania. Methods: This study employed a convergent mixed-method approach to conduct the bottleneck analysis. Quantitative data were collected to identify indicators of MH utilization, with source including Tanzanian health statistics, health facilities and the women in reproductive age (WRA) survey. In-depth interviews (IDIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted with WRA, their families, community health workers (CHWs), and healthcare personnel (HP) to gain insight into factors influencing healthcare utilization from both a demand and an environmental perspective. Following the Tanahashi steps, the quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and the qualitative data were analyzed using a thematic approach. The findings from both were integrated to identify bottlenecks toward effective coverage and how bottlenecks affected the utilization of MH services. Results: Community awareness and acceptance were observed to be high, however only a limited number of individuals had received MH services. Utilization rates for antenatal care (ANC) and postnatal care (PNC) were 17.4% and 22.0%, respectively. This suggests that efforts to enhance awareness may be inadequate to change social norms and lead to health behaviors. Furthermore, even when women utilize the service, they may not do so in a timely or consistent manner due to low service quality or unsatisfactory experiences. Conclusion: To strengthen the logic model, contextual factors such as provider attitudes, service quality, supportive family, and community climate need to be considered to ensure that WRAs are satisfied with and continue to access services. With building supply-side infrastructure, ongoing efforts to change stakeholders’ perceptions of MH services and utilization patterns will be needed to improve the coverage of MH services.