An exploration of factors promoting male involvement in women’s antenatal care in Bangladesh

Abstract

In Bangladesh's perspective, male involvement is inevitable in ensuring wives’ antenatal care (ANC) to promote safe motherhood as men are often the key decision makers regarding women's reproductive health matters in the orthodox society. The present study aims at exploring the factors that promote men's participation in receiving healthcare of pregnant women. Data of the study were collected from 189 married women aged 15–49 years from both rural and urban areas of Chittagong division through structured questionnaire. Bivariate analyses from chi-square test (χ2) were run to see the association between men's involvement in ANC as the dependent variable with various socioeconomic and behavioural variables of respondents and their husbands. Besides, odds ratio with 95% confidence interval from logistic regression was applied to identify the factors related to male involvement in receiving healthcare and services of their pregnant wives. The results imply that husbands’ related predictors associated with their involvement in ANC are: men's secondary education (Odds Ratio, OR = 4.85, 95% Confidence Interval, CI: 1.20–19.68), higher secondary level (OR = 6.11, 95% CI: 2.03–27.26) and graduation (OR = 7.57, 95% CI: 4.48–44.10), service (OR = 6.80, 95% CI: 1.03–46.19), knowledge on reproductive health (OR = 4.74, 95% CI: 2.85–11.27), positive attitude towards family planning (OR = 13.60, 95% CI: 2.93–62.80) and communication on reproductive health issues with neighbours, relatives and friends (OR = 5.72, 95% CI: 1.55–21.11). Moreover, variables belonging to wives that determine their husbands’ participation in ANC include women's access to print media (OR = 4.52, 95% CI: 1.09–18.73) and their interaction in a social network on reproductive health topics (OR = 3.76, 95% CI: 1.12–12.69).