Perceived client satisfaction is considered an
outcome of health care utilization. Many interventions have
been put in place to improve client satisfaction of maternity
delivery services. Community participation through
community health strategy is one such intervention rolled out
in Kenya in 2006. This study examined the effect of
community health strategy policy on perception of client
satisfaction of maternity delivery services in Kakamega
County, Kenya. This was an analytical comparative study
design utilizing quantitative data derived from a cross
sectional survey among women of under five years old
children. Data was collected from four purposively selected
administrative units also referred to as sub location. Two sub
locations were selected from Butere Sub County where
community health strategy policy is implemented while two
control sub locations from the neighbouring Khwisero sub
county that had not launched community health strategy in
the two sub locations. Both Sub Counties are from
Kakamega County. Data processing and analysis was done
using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version
20 and Microsoft Excel. Chi square test was used at p-value
of < 0.05 considered for statistically significance difference.
And odds ratio used to assess strength of associations. The
findings showed that a high proportion (83.9%) of women in
community health strategy implementing sites were more
likely to be satisfied with the quality of maternity delivery
services compared to their counterparts in the
non-implementing sites (52.4%). Irrespective of age,
education level, group belonging and main household
income source, the differences in perceived client
satisfaction remained statistically significant between
implementing and non-implementing sites while the within
site comparison showed no significant in difference due to
women characteristics at p value < 0.05. This study showed
that women in the strategy implementing sub locations were
satisfied with maternity delivery services while their
counterparts of non-implementing sub locations showed
poor client satisfaction perception for the service. Results of
this study imply that community strategy policy has potential
to improve the perception on client satisfaction for maternity
delivery services and for maternity delivery users. In view if
this, the scale up of the strategy will go a long way in
improve hospital based deliveries and therefore a strategy to
reduce maternal mortality.