Knowledge of Obstetric Danger Signs and Associated Factors among Pregnant Women Attending ANC Service at Gedo Town Health Facilities, 2015

Abstract

Background: Globally, every minute at least one woman dies from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth. But maternal mortality could be significantly reduced if the women and their families could recognize obstetric danger signs and promptly seeking health care services.Objective: To assess the knowledge of obstetric danger signs and aassociated factors among pregnant women attending ANC service at Gedo town health facilities in 2015.Methods: A facility based cross-sectional study was conducted from March 01-30 of 2015 on a randomly selected 198 pregnant women who were attending ANC service at Gedo town health facilities. Systematic sampling technique was employed to select the study participants and face to face interview based pre-tested questionnaires was used to collect the data. Then bivariate and multivariate data analysis was performed using SPSS window version 16.0 software.Result: Out of the total 208 sampled study participants, about 198 respondents were interviewed with making a response rate of 95%. From the total respondents about 114(57.5%) of the respondents were Knowledgeable about obstetric danger signs and respondents education, occupation and availability of mass-media in the house were independent predictors for obstetric danger signs. Respondents who attended above grade 12 were about four times more likely knowledgeable about obstetrics danger signs than those respondents who were illiterate at (AOR= 4.421, 95% CI: 2.102-9.743). Participants of Government employ in occupational status were about four times more likely knowledgeable about obstetric danger signs than those respondents who were house wife at (AOR=4.561, 95% CI: 2.031-10.115). Participants who have mass media in their house were about three times more likely knowledgeable about obstetric danger signs than those who didn’t  have mass media in their house at (AOR=3.129,95% CI:1.550-4.318).Conclusions and Recommendations: In this study significant proportion of mothers were not knowledgeable about obstetric danger signs. This indicates that many mothers are more likely to delay in deciding to seek health care if they face obstetric complications. The educational level of the respondents, occupational status of the respondents, and availability of the mass media in their house were the independent predictors of knowledge about obstetric danger signs. Therefore, an appropriate counseling and health education should be given to all pregnant mothers and their families to increase their knowledge about obstetric danger signs to enable them in early recognition of obstetric danger signs for seeking health care.

Keywords: Knowledge of obstetrics danger signs, Gedo town, health facilities