Husband Support Rises Women’s Awareness of Preconception Care in Northern Ethiopia

Abstract

Background. Preconception care (PCC) aims to improve pregnancy and health outcomes of mothers and their offspring. However, there is no adequate evidence of awareness on preconception care in Ethiopia. Therefore, the present study was performed to assess the level of awareness and associated factors of preconception care among currently delivered mothers. Method. A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 561 mothers in Northern Ethiopia. Data were collected using a pretested, structured questionnaire. Odds ratio presented with 95% confidence interval, and a p value <0.25 at bivariable and p value <0.01 at multivariable logistic regression were used to declare statistical significance. Results. 39.0% of mothers were aware of preconception care. Awareness of preconception care was lower among mothers who did not have joint plan discussion with their partner (AOR = 0.15; 95% CI (0.08, 0.28)); did not have a history of adverse pregnancy outcome (AOR = 0.45; 95% CI (0.25, 0.83)), and did not receive husband support (AOR = 0.10; 95% CI (0.05, 0.19)). Conclusion. Women’s awareness of preconception care remains low. Joint plan discussion with the partner, previous history of adverse pregnancy outcome, and husband support were statistically significant predictors of awareness of preconception care. Thus, informing and sensitizing women and advocating husband support on preconception care are needed.

Why do women not prepare for pregnancy? Exploring women’s and health care providers’ views on barriers to uptake of preconception care in Mana District, Southwest Ethiopia: a qualitative study

“…Husbands had a great role in women's and children's health. Women who were able to decide themselves or jointly decide with their husbands were more likely to use preconception care than those who were not able to decide themselves [24,38]. However, in the current study, even though women were the major responsible individuals in fulfilling the family's needs, husbands were the main decision-makers in all activities and did not support women to obtain health services.…”

“…Thirty-eight women of reproductive age groups participated in the 4 focused group discussions. The mean age of the reproductive age group women was 29.67(range: [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]. The majority of the women were illiterate in terms of their educational status and multiparous in terms of parity.…”

“…A potential solution to this problem is creating awareness about the health consequences of power dominancy. In addition, there is a need to informing and sensitizing women of reproductive age and advocating husband's support on preconception care [38]. Promotional messages should also be focused on highlighting the impact of not using preconception care.…”

Knowledge of preconception care and its association with family planning utilization among women in Ethiopia: meta-analysis

“…Although there are appropriate interventional strategies to increase the knowledge and uptake of PCC in the community 18 , 19 , the current studies revealed women’s awareness about PCC and its utilization is low 20 , 21 . The knowledge level of PCC varies significantly from across the world 22 , 23 .…”

Knowledge and utilisation of preconception care and associated factors among women in Ethiopia: systematic review and meta-analysis

“…The sample size ranged from 142 women who reside in Addis Ababa [ 19 ] to 680 Western Shoa zone of Oromia [ 16 ]. Regarding geographical distribution of studies, four studies were from Oromia (30.7%) [ 16 , 18 , 23 , 27 ], four from Amhara (30.7%) [ 15 , 22 , 25 , 26 ], two from Tigray (15.4%) [ 21 , 24 ], two from (15.4%) SNNP[ 17 , 20 ] and one from AA (7.8%) [ 19 ]. Eleven of the included studies reported on knowledge[ 15 – 25 ], and six provided data on utilization of PCC[ 16 , 18 , 22 , 24 , 26 , 27 ] (Table 1 ).…”