Adequacy and timeliness of antenatal care visits among Ethiopian women: a community-based panel study

Abstract

ObjectivesThe purposes of the study are; (A) to identify whether Ethiopian women’s antenatal care (ANC) visits are adequate and timely and (B) to explore factors that determine these.DesignPanel study design.SettingEthiopia.ParticipantsA total of 2855 women nested within 217 enumeration areas.Primary outcome measuresAdequacy and timeliness of ANC visits.ResultsOf all the 2855 respondents, 65% had made an ANC visit once, while 26.8% initiated ANC visits in a timely way and 43.3% attended adequate ANC visits. Rural residence (adjusted OR (AOR)=0.55, 95% CI: 0.36 to 0.84), attending higher level of education (AOR=2.64, 95% CI: 1.47 to 4.77), being multipara (AOR=0.53, 95% CI: 0.32 to 0.89) and encouragement by partners to attend clinic for ANC (AOR=1.98, 95% CI: 1.14 to 3.44) were significantly associated with timeliness of ANC visit. Similarly, residing in rural areas (AOR=0.20, 95% CI: 0.12 to 0.35), attending higher level of education (AOR=2.96, 95% CI: 1.38 to 6.15), encouragement by partners to attend clinic for ANC (AOR=2.11, 95% CI: 1.31 to 3.40) and timeliness of ANC visit (AOR=4.59, 95% CI: 2.93 to 7.21) were significantly associated with adequacy of ANC visits.ConclusionsA quarter of the pregnant women started ANC visits during the first trimester and nearly half attended adequate ANC visits with wider disparities across regions of their origin and their background characteristics. Concerted efforts on tailored interventions for rural residents, female education and partner involvement are recommended for early and adequate ANC visit(s).

Factors Affecting Nonadherence to WHO’s Recommended Antenatal Care Visits among Women in Pastoral Community, Northeastern Ethiopia: A Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study

“…This finding was in agreement with the results of the studies in Ethiopia [ 12 , 14 , 18 ], Ghana [ 20 ], East Africa [ 9 ], and Sub-Saharan Africa [ 10 , 38 ] that reported women's education as an enabling factor for attending four or more ANC visits. This finding was also supported by other previous studies [ 9 , 13 , 28 , 39 , 40 ]. This could be explained by the fact that educated women might have a better awareness of the benefits of adequate ANC attendance [ 41 ] and thus more likely to adhere to the recommended visits.…”

“…is result was consistent with the finding of the studies conducted in Ethiopia [13], seven countdown countries [49], and Ghana [20], which revealed a decreased likelihood of completing the recommended visits with an increase in GA at the first visit.…”

“…The current study aimed to assess the level of noncompliance to WHO's recommended antenatal care visits and associated factors among mothers in the Afar Region, Northeastern Ethiopia. Accordingly, the overall level of nonadherence to the recommended ANC visits in this study was 57.1% (95% CI: 53.3%–60.7%), which is consistent with the study conducted in five regions of Ethiopia (56.7%) [ 13 ]. However, this finding was slightly higher than the results of the studies done in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia (50.1%) [ 17 ], and Egypt (51.3%) [ 30 ].…”

“…Consistent with the finding of previous studies in Ethiopia [ 11 , 13 ], women from households not possessing radio and/or television were 1.85 times more likely to receive ANC visits below the recommendation compared with those from households owning these communication media. This finding was also consistent with the result of the studies in India [ 47 ], Bangladesh [ 29 ], and East Africa [ 9 ].…”

“…In Africa, about three-fourths of pregnant women receive at least one ANC [2], and the prevalence of adequate ANC utilization was 58.5% in SSA countries and 53.4% in the Eastern African region [10]. In Ethiopia, noncompliance to the recommended ANC visits ranges from 36.3% to 63.4% [11][12][13][14][15].…”