LATE ANTENATAL BOOKING AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG ANTENATAL CARE ATTENDEES IN KOLFE HEALTH CENTER, ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA

Abstract

ABSTRACT Background: The goal of ANC is to prevent health problems of pregnant women through detection of complications and treatment of related illness. Late ANC booking makes difficult to implement this. Objective: To assess the prevalence of late antenatal booking and associated factors among ANC attendants in Kolfe Health Center, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Method: Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted among randomly selected pregnant women attending their first ANC in Kolfe Health Center from November 2018 to January 2019G.C. Data was collected using pre-tested & semi-structured questionnaires by trained midwives then entered in to Epi info version 7 & analysis made using SPSS version 20. Logistic regression model was used & independent factors, with a p-value <0.1 obtained in the bivariate logistic regression were entered into the multiple logistic regression models. Result: Out of 342 pregnant mothers included in this study, 185 (54.1%) pregnant mothers started their first ANC visit early while the remaining 157(45.9%) pregnant mothers started ANC late. Multivariate analysis revealed that respondents with the educational level of elementary and below (AOR,4.12;95%CI,2.46 to 6.89), unplanned pregnancy (AOR,4.77;95%CI,2.70 to 8.42) and lack of advise about ANC (AOR,2.25;95%CI, 1.05 to 4.82) to be booked late after 16 weeks of gestation. Conclusion: Magnitude of Late booking for ANC in the study was higher & strongly associated with unplanned pregnancy, low educational status and lack of advice on ANC. Provision health education for planned pregnancy should be strategic instruments to reduce this in the study area.