EFFECT OF SOCIAL MARKETING CAMPAIGN ON UTILIZATION OF PRIMARY HEALTH CARE CURATIVE SERVICES IN URBAN SECTOR OF SHARKIA GOVERNORATE

Abstract

Primary Health Care (PHC) services underutilization was the main finding all over Egypt including Sharkia Governorate and social marketing campaign was a successful method to promote the use of such services. Aim & Objectives: The aim of this work is to maximize the utilization of PHC curative services with the following objectives: (1) to design and implement a tailored social marketing campaign in an urban area in Sharkia Governorate. (2) to assess the effect of this campaign on the rate of utilization of PHC curative services in the same urban area in Sharkia Governorate. Subjects & Methods: An intervention study in the form of six months social marketing campaign that was conducted in El-Ebrahemia City, Sharkia Governorate to promote the utilization of El-Ebrahemia Family Health Center (FHC) curative services. This campaign included internal and external marketing seminars, dissemination of promotional materials with participation of EL-Ebrahemia health district, the mosques leaders and the volunteers in its implementation. The evaluation was done through comparing the service output indicators and the households surveys results before and after campaign using Paired t test and McNamar test. Results: The campaign was able to increase the utilization of the studied households of all curative services especially 1st aid service from 0% to 17.6%. This was also accompanied with corresponding increase in the service output indicators during and after the campaign. Conclusion: Social marketing was an effective intervention to promote the utilization of El-Ebrahemia FHC curative services. Based on the results, it is recommended that the use of social marketing activities is an essential step to mobilize the served community to utilize PHC services.
Keywords: Social marketing, Utilization, Primary health care curative services, Pareto analysis