Why institutional delivery is still the last option to rural women in North West Ethiopia: Qualitative study

Abstract

Background: whatever the actions has been implemented, home delivery preference in Ethiopia is still over 72%. To date, no studies explored why institutional delivery is still the last option to rural women in Ethiopia. This study was conducted to explore the reason why institutional delivery is still the last option to rural women in Awi Zone Northwest Ethiopia.Methods: An explanatory qualitative study was conducted from February to March 2014. Participants were selected purposively and written informed consent was sought. Twelve reproductive aged females, ten religious and twelve community leaders and sixteen key informants were participated. Data were collected by using semi-structured questionnaire using focused group discussion and in-depth interview guides. Thick description and peer debriefing were applied to assure data quality. Thematic analysis framework was used to analyse the data. Results: The study revealed that institutional delivery is still the last option to the study area. Individual related factors like information gap, low risk Perception to pregnancy and delivery have been mentioned as drive factors for not using institutional delivery. Community related factors of women’s poor position to decision, beliefs and cultural practices for home delivery preference affects institutional delivery. In addition, health facility related barriers like inaccessibility of health facility, infrastructure, lack of privacy during delivery, misconducts of health care providers and high risk perception to health facility delivery were repeated raised as reasons of last option of institutional delivery. Conclusion: This study elucidated that home delivery preference was existed, given high social and cultural price for home delivery and misconceptions towards institutional delivery. Thus, the Ethiopian government together with its partners should focus on accessing health facilities, infrastructure, equipping health facilities with essential materials and skilled health professionals and increasing knowledge of the community, avert communities’ misconceptions and deep-rooted socio-cultural beliefs towards institutional delivery.