Magnitude and Factors Influencing Unintended Pregnancy among Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Care at Felege Hiwot Referral Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Unintended pregnancy is important public health concern both in the developing and developed world that increases maternal morbidity and mortality. The proportion of unintended pregnancies is increasing in Ethiopia; yet the determinants of unwanted and mistimed pregnancy has not been identified clearly. The objectives of this study were to determine magnitude and identify factors associated with unintended pregnancy among currently pregnant women visiting antenatal care clinic, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted on 454 women attending antenatal care clinic at Felege Hiwot Referral Hospital from June to July 2012. Simple random sampling technique was used to select study participants. Data were collected by trained data collectors using pretested structured questionnaires. Data were checked for completeness, consistency, coded and entered into EPI Info (version 3.5.2) and transferred to SPSS version 16 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was computed to test the strength of association and level of significance. P-value <0.05 was considered as statistical significant. Results: The magnitude of unintended pregnancy was 26.0 % (13.7% mistimed and 12.3% were unwanted). Major reasons mentioned for failure to avoid unintended pregnancy were lack of knowledge, disapproval by husband, and method failure. The study revealed that illiterate women were three times more likely to experience unintended pregnancy compared to those women educated secondary and above (AOR= 3.10, CI: 1.66- 5.78). Likewise, those women who had family size of 3-5 were twice more likely at risk to have unintended pregnancy compared to those who had family size of 1-2 (AOR= 2.19; CI: 1.32- 3.61) and those women who had family size of greater than 5 were nine folds at risk to have unintended pregnancy compared to those who had family size of 1-2 (AOR=8.90; CI: 4.37-18.13). Conclusion: The finding of this study showed that a considerable proportion of women had unintended pregnancy (26%). The study showed that many factors were interwoven to affect the occurrence of the unintended pregnancy. Differences in educational status of women and family size, previous history of unintended pregnancy and male partner awareness on contraceptive utilization were found to be significantly significant with unintended pregnancy. Health promotion messages are needed to focus to improve the knowledge of women about contraceptives as a primary prevention of unplanned pregnancies.