Savana Signatures - Ghana

Final Report: Savana Signatures - Ghana

This summer I worked with Savana Signatures on a virtual research project about postpartum lifestyles for women in the Northern Region of Ghana. Savana Signatures is an NGO based in the Northern Region of Ghana. Their work is specialized within the field of sexual and reproductive health and work with women and youth in Ghana. Specifically, with their work, they address sexual health, reproductive rights, education, and skills development gaps of the vulnerable population in Ghana, including the youth and women.

The research aim was to determine the factors that influence women’s health choices during the postpartum period and their effect on health outcomes of maternal and newborn care in Northern Ghana. It focuses on the Choggu and Kanvilli Health Center in Sagnarigu District in the Northern Region of Ghana and women that are within six months of delivery. The postpartum period is the period from delivery to when a woman's body reaches its pre-pregnancy state. This is a vital time period for a mother and her baby. The majority of maternal deaths occur during this period. So it is necessary that the mother and her baby are living healthy lifestyles.

The main part of the research I worked on this summer was the background research and writing the proposal. Due to the fact that it was meant to be done in healthcare facilities, ethical clearance in Ghana was needed to complete the research. For the ethical clearance, there was extensive background research that was needed for the proposal. The background research was mostly an in-depth literature review on the topic as a whole. Through this I was able to learn about Ghana’s new healthcare initiatives for maternal care like Ghana's National Health Insurance Scheme, providing free maternal health care services, community-based health planning and services. This was put in place because healthcare facilities take preventable care measures to provide the women with necessary care, like precautionary exams and education, to help them stay healthy and safe. But the Northern Region has a significantly lower number of deliveries in healthcare facilities than the average in Ghana, which can lead to more complications during pregnancy, birth, or the postpartum period. In my literature review, I was also able to connect and read about maternal mortality, birth preparedness, prenatal care, and postpartum care in the context of the recommendations by the World Health, in Ghana, and specifically in the Northern Region of Ghana in the Sagnarigu District. It was eye-opening to do this research and have an in-depth understanding of their postpartum care and the social determinants of health in relation to pregnancies.

Another large part of the project was planning the methods and the focus groups. The focus groups were planned to interview 32 women within the first six months after giving birth at the healthcare facilities they receive their postpartum care from. After assessing my research on the factors that influence other parts of maternal care in this region, I formed a list of discussion questions for the interviewers to ask the women in the focus groups. The focus groups were chosen instead of interviews because they allow for more discussions among the participants and the women would have the chance to express more of their hardships during their postpartum periods. Creating the questions was difficult because I was unsure of how the women would respond to the questions, or whether we would receive the direct and open answers we wanted in return. But it was also a way I was able to apply everything I have learned about maternal health care and the social determinants of health.

The two most challenging parts of this experience were learning how to communicate effectively virtually and with a seven-hour time change, as well as the process for getting ethical clearance in Ghana. Communication came hard for me in the beginning because I had to ask for a lot of help and guidance in starting the process. Once I learned to switch from email to WhatsApp and how to ask effective questions, my partners at Savana Signatures were incredibly helpful. The process from ethical approval was also long, much longer than I expected which made it challenging. Due to the processes of the health directorate in Ghana, along with applying for IRB approval with the Navrongo Research Institute, I had to send proposals and letters to the different sections of the health directorate before being able to contact the healthcare facilities. This process forced me to develop a lot of patience with research. This patience will help me improve the planning of future research projects I hope to complete, taking into account how much more work approval for processes is and how much time it takes to receive.

For Savana Signatures, this was their first virtual partnership. So we got to learn, grow, and figure it out together. I provided my feedback about my experience and hopefully started to help them build a way for them to have more virtual connections. Also, once our paper about the research is complete, its findings will hopefully help them in their future actions taken for the women in the Northern Region of Ghana. Understanding these factors in women’s lives can help them create programs to help the women during their postpartum period by possibly increasing education or aid for them during this period in order to help improve maternal health.

In conclusion, I believe that this experience taught me about the challenges and rewards of creating a research project as well as additional life and professional skills. Not only was I able to learn for myself how to write a proposal, conduct extensive background research, create questions for focus groups, create consent forms for participants, and learn how to go through an ethical clearance process, it also taught me how to communicate and collaborate virtually with people halfway across the world on an everyday basis. I also learned so much about maternal healthcare in Ghana.