Abstract:
Background: Every year, approximately 536,000 maternal deaths occur in the world due to pregnancy related complications; of which over 95% occur in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia. One explanation for poor health outcomes among women in these countries including Ethiopia is the low utilization of ANC & delivery care services by a large proportion of women. Objective: This study was aimed to assess factors influencing utilization of antenatal and delivery care services in Burji special woreda, SNNPR, Ethiopia. Methods: A community-based cross sectional study that used both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection was conducted in Burji special woreda from March1-30,2011. The study included 1 urban and 8 rural kebeles with a total sample size of 773 respondents that were selected by multistage (two stage) sampling and purposive sampling was used to select 40 discussants (men and women) for four FGDs. Quantitative data was edited, coded and entered into SPSS version 16 by which also analysis was done. For qualitative, data was analyzed manually. Results: The study revealed that the proportion of women who received ANC was 55.6%. Only16.4% mothers delivered at health institution and only 15 % of total delivery was attended by skilled birth attendants. Residence(AOR=4.657; 95% CI=1.937, 11.198),monthly income and maternal education were major determinants of ANC service utilization and residence(AOR=8.061; 95% CI=4.145, 15.675), maternal education and ANC attendance (AOR=0.199; 95% CI=0.108, 0.365)were determinants for delivery care service utilization after adjusting for other variables. The findings were also supported by FGD results where economic constraints, transport problems and inaccessibility of health facilities were important factors for low utilization of maternal health care services. Conclusion: This study confirmed that the proportion of ANC and delivery care services users was very low. Economical, health facility related and socio-demographic factors were the most frequently identified contributors to the low maternal health care services utilization. More effort should be made to improve formal education for mothers & girls, boost accessibility to and strengthening maternal health care services.
