Attitudes of professionals in providing maternity care in a primary health care system in Saudi Arabia

This study was done on a sample of the primary care centers in the Al-Baha region, Saudi Arabia to assess the opinions of the medical and paramedical staff regarding the capability and acceptability of providing antenatal and intrapartum care in the primary health care setting. The study showed that 96% of all the respondents supported the provision of antenatal care services in primary health care with 60% of them giving the reason that it is more convenient for pregnant women.90% of the respondents wanted the antenatal care to be delivered through special clinics and the majority of them wanted to give a greater role to the midwives in antenatal care. Questioned about the intranatal care provision in the centers, 98% of all the respondents agreed to the utilization of primary health care in such service. A similar percentage of them claimed to have the ability to do deliveries in the centers with existing facilities.To avoid duplication of care and to best use of available resources, low risk pregnancies should be seen antenatally and delivered in the primary health care centres provided the quality of such care is kept under control.Abdulaziz N. Al-Nasser is Assistant Professor of Primary Health Care; Mohammed A. Al-Sekait is Assistant Professor of Community Medicine; Elijah A. Bamgboye is Assistant Professor of Medical Statistics; all in the Department of Family and Community Medicine, College of Medicine, King Saud University, Riyadh 11472, Saudi Arabia.Wahid A. Khan is coordinator in the Primary Health Care Program, Al-Baha, Saudi Arabia.