Quality of Family Planning Services and Client Satisfaction in Selected Private and Public Health Facilities in Nigeria

Introduction: Client satisfaction is considered as the best indicator of the quality of service provision and a major element to boost the uptake of family planning (FP) services. This study aimed to compare the quality of services and client satisfaction in both private and public health facilities in Nigeria. Methodology: Facility-based cross-sectional study was carried out from June 7 – 28, 2017 by African Health Research team with 498 female FP users. Respondents were selected by using systematic random sampling from 12 private, and 18 public health facilities in Nigeria. A pre-tested structured questionnaire was used to collect data and the data were analyzed using IBM-SPSS version 25.0 and statistically significant association was declared at p-value <0.05. Result: The study found that the waiting time for most of the clients in both private (62.7%) and public (75.2%) was less than 30 minutes (p=0.101). While 73.1% of FP clients in private facilities were satisfied with waiting time, 82.1% reported the same in public facilities (p<0.081). The average quality of service was significantly higher in public facilities (93.3%) than the private (86.6%) (p<0.001). No significant difference was observed in overall client satisfaction between private (88.7%) and public facilities (92.4), p = 0.858. Conclusion: This study found high quality of FP services and client satisfaction in both public and private health facilities in Nigeria, though public facilities showed higher quality of services than the private facilities. However, there is a need for more improvement in both facilities to enhance client satisfaction.