Prevalence and associated factors of unintended pregnancy among pregnant women of reproductive age group in chencha woreda, gammo gofa zone, Southern Ethiopia

Abstract

Introduction: Unintended pregnancies and unplanned births can have serious health, economic, and social consequences for women and their families. The immediate outcome of some unintended pregnancies is induced abortion which is unsafe in many countries that have highly restrictive abortion laws. In these countries, abortion often damages women’s health and sometimes results in their death. Method: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted. A total of 420 study participants were recruited. Simple random sampling was used to draw participants; the collected data were entered into EPI- Data version (7.9.0.) and then exported to SPSS Version 20.0 for analysis. Descriptive statistics, binary and multiple logistic regression analysis were carried out, Odds ratio with 95% CI were calculated. Result: the prevalence of unintended pregnancy was found to be 30.2%. Multiple logistic regression results showed that the previous history of abortion (AOR=8.262; 95%CI=3.692, 18.489), not discussing the sexual reproductive health (SRH) issues with their husband (AOR=3.086; 95%CI=1.830, 5.205) age of the last child less than three years (AOR=1.870; 95%CI=1.100, 3.179) were significantly associated with unintended pregnancy. Conclusion: This study shown that the prevalence of unintended pregnancy is high in the study area, hence, strengthening the provision of post abortion services, counseling on long term family planning services and male involvement in all reproductive health services are highly recommended.