PREVALENCE AND FACTORS AFFECTING THE UTILIZATION OF ANTENATAL CARE IN SANA’A CITY, YEMEN

Abstract

Background and objective: Antenatal care (ANC) is a health care intervention designed to ensure the safety of pregnancy for the mother and fetus. This system recommends a minimum of four preconception care visits for a healthy pregnancy, according to the World Health Organization. It is not known whether this recommended number of visits was followed or not in urban or rural areas of Yemen. Therefore, the study aimed to investigate the prevalence and factors associated with the ANC utilization by pregnant women in Sana'a city, Yemen.
 Methods: This study is an Institutional based cross-sectional descriptive study of married pregnant women practices toward ANC services. The sample size was calculated by Epi-Info to be 452 participants; multistage sampling was adopted. Data were collected from direct interviews using a structured questionnaire with closed-ended questions filled in by the investigators. A local language questionnaire was used. The questionnaire consists of several parts (Demographic characteristics, obstetric history, and practices and utilization of ANC) at 10- Health centers of Sana’a city, Republic of Yemen. Epi-Info was used for data analysis, χ2 was calculated and p value < 0.05 was considered as a cut off for significance of deference. 
 Results: The response rate was 99.1%. Only 214 (47.3%) of the respondents have adequate utilization of ANC. Adequate ANC utilization was high in educated mother, educated husband, with high moderate income, and mothers with children >5. According to obstetric factors, adequate ANC utilization was high in mothers whose age at first pregnancy was more than 20 years, primigravida and primipara.
 Conclusion: The results of the study draw attention to the need to levitate the number of ANC visits, and the significance of using an suitable model to ascertain the important socio-demographic factors that ANC service providers shall focus on to improve the health of the unborn baby and the mother during pregnancy.
 
 Peer Review History: 
 Received: 4 July 2022; Revised: 12 August; Accepted: 7 September, Available online: 15 September 2022
 Academic Editor: Ahmad Najib, Universitas Muslim Indonesia, Indonesia, ahmad.najib@umi.ac.id
 UJPR follows the most transparent and toughest ‘Advanced OPEN peer review’ system. The identity of the authors and, reviewers will be known to each other. This transparent process will help to eradicate any possible malicious/purposeful interference by any person (publishing staff, reviewer, editor, author, etc) during peer review. As a result of this unique system, all reviewers will get their due recognition and respect, once their names are published in the papers. We expect that, by publishing peer review reports with published papers, will be helpful to many authors for drafting their article according to the specifications. Auhors will remove any error of their article and they will improve their article(s) according to the previous reports displayed with published article(s). The main purpose of it is ‘to improve the quality of a candidate manuscript’. Our reviewers check the ‘strength and weakness of a manuscript honestly’. There will increase in the perfection, and transparency. 
 Received file: Reviewer's Comments:
 Average Peer review marks at initial stage: 6.0/10
 Average Peer review marks at publication stage: 7.0/10
 Reviewers:
 Dr. Wadhah Hassan Ali Edrees, Hajja University, Yemen, edress2020@gmail.com
 Dr. Bilge Ahsen KARA, Ankara Gazi Mustafa Kemal Hospital, Turkey, ahsndkyc@gmail.com
 Similar Articles: 
 TETANUS IMMUNIZATION AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN: COVERAGE RATE AND RATE OF PROTECTION AT TIME OF DELIVERY