A study to evaluate the quality of care among women using family planning services (clinical based): comparative analysis of two clinics of Maria Stopes Hospital and Mwananyamala District Hospital in Kinondoni district, Dar es Salaam region.

Evaluation of quality of care using the six elements namely: choice of methods, information given to clients, technical competence, interpersonal relations, mechanisms to encourage continuity and appropriate constellation of services is one of the many ways used by family planning programme managers and other evaluators to measure effectiveness of the services. In the past, the measuring of quality services was based more on how the programme managers and the providers perceived it on behalf of the clients. However, this has changed over time. Now clients' perception has become a very fundamental element of measuring quality of care. The availability of information of this kind can be used by the providers and their managers to improve their services. In this respect, measuring of quality of care has proved a success. This work seeks to explore the client's perception of quality of care. At the same time it seeks to understand problems providers face during the whole process of service delivery. It is a clinical-based study and so will be dealing with the services provided within those surroundings. The cases in point are only women clients from Mwananyamala and Marie Stopes clinics of family planning, both situated in Kinondoni District. In addition to that, providers from each clinic are included. The dissertation is divided into four chapters. The first chapter covers the introduction part. It includes the background to the problem, statement of the problem, the objective of the study, the area covered by the study and hypotheses. It also explains the significance of the study and its limitations. Chapter two is the literature review. It explains briefly the establishment of family planning in Tanzania and mainly explores and explains the whole quality of care framework with reference to Judith Bruce's framework. Furthermore, it discusses the theoretical and conceptual framework according to other various sources of literature based on quality of care. The third chapter focuses on the research methods. It defines the population, and explains the sampling procedures undertaken in the study. It also explains and justifies the data collection methods which included questionnaires, interviews and observations; and explains the scope of the study. Chapter four constitutes the research findings. The chapter discusses the results obtained from the fieldwork. It shows how the findings were analysed. It mainly discusses the six elements of quality of care: choice of methods, information given to clients, technical competence, interpersonal relations, continuity and follow- up and appropriate constellation of services from both clinics. Besides, it discusses the problems encountered by the providers including observations made by the researcher during fieldwork. The last chapter consists of the summary, conclusion and recommendations of the study.