Abstract
BackgroundPreconception care refers to things women can do before and between pregnancies to increase the chance of having a healthy baby and being a healthy mother. Unfortunately, millions of women in the world do not have access to pre-pregnancy, pregnancy health services and childbirth with suitable quality. Therefore, addressing this significant gap and coming up with the necessary information is helpful to improve maternal and child health in our country. So, this study was aimed to assess the utilization of preconception care and associated factors among reproductive age group women in Debre Birhan Town, North Shewa, Ethiopia.MethodsA mixed method of community based cross-sectional study was employed from March 1st to 30; 2017. Systematic sampling technique was used to select a total of 424 reproductive age women. The data were collected using pre-tested and structured questionnaire and eight in-depth interviews were done using an interview guide. The collected data were coded and entered into Epi data 3.5.1 and exported to SPSS version 21 for cleaning and analysis. Logistic regression was run to look for the association between dependent and explanatory variables; and using variables which have p-value ≤0.25 binary logistic regression was fitted. Association presented in Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval and significance determined at P-value less than 0.05.ResultA total of 410 subjects were participated with a response rate of 96.7%. The overall utilization of Preconception care was 13.4%. Woman’s age, marital status, knowledge and availability of unit for preconception care were significantly associated with utilization of preconception care with (AOR: 3.567; 95% CI: 1.082, 11.758), (AOR: 0.062; 95% CI: 0.007, 0.585), (AOR = 6.263; 95% CI: 2.855, 13.739) and AOR: 13.938; 95% CI: 3.516, 55.251) respectively.ConclusionsThe finding of this study showed that women’s utilization of preconception care is relatively low. A woman’s age, marital status, educational status, knowledge about preconception care services and availability of unit for preconception care were factors affecting utilization of preconception care. Therefore, establishing preconception care strategies which can address all the components of the care will be essential when designing effective implementation strategies for improving the uptake of preconception care.
Highlights
Preconception care refers to things women can do before and between pregnancies to increase the chance of having a healthy baby and being a healthy mother
Plain English summary Preconception care is any intervention provided to women and couples of reproductive age, regardless of pregnancy status or desire, before pregnancy, to improve health outcomes for women, newborns and children
Eight key informants asked for an in-depth interview to identify health facility related factors
Summary
Preconception care refers to things women can do before and between pregnancies to increase the chance of having a healthy baby and being a healthy mother. Millions of women in the world do not have access to pre-pregnancy, pregnancy health services and childbirth with suitable quality. Addressing this significant gap and coming up with the necessary information is helpful to improve maternal and child health in our country. Preconception care is defined as a set of interventions and/or programmes that aims to identify and enable informed decision-making to modify biomedical, behavioral, and (psycho-) social risks to parental health and the health of their future child, through counseling, prevention and management, emphasizing those factors that must be acted on before conception and in early pregnancy, to have maximal impact and/or choice [1]. An estimated 5.9 million children under 5 years of age died, of those deaths, 45%
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