EC Clinical and Medical Case Reports

Background: Maternal waiting homes are residential facilities located within hospitals or health centers to accommodate women in their final weeks of pregnancy and a strategy to “bridge the geographical gap” in obstetric care between rural areas with poor access to functioning facilities and urban areas where maternity services are available.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to assess the intention to use maternity waiting homes and associated factors among eligible pregnant women in Asella public health facility, southeast Ethiopia, 2023.

Method: An institutional-based cross-sectional study was conducted among pregnant mothers in Asella public health facility. Single population proportion formula was used to calculate sample size of 414 pregnant women. Data were collected using semi-structured interviewer-administered questionnaire and entered to Epi data version 4.6 then exported to SPSS version 25 for analysis. Bi-variate and multi-variate logistic regression analysis were done using odds ratio with 95% confidence interval. P-value < 0.05 was considered as significant in multi-variate analysis.

Results: In this study, the overall prevalence of intention to use maternity waiting home among pregnant women was 55.3%.Variables like; history of maternity waiting home utilization (AOR 4.912, 95% CI: 2.66 - 9.07), Attending pregnant women conference (AOR 2.026, 95% CI: 1.144 - 3.588), History for obstetric complications (AOR 2.536, 95% CI: 1.619 - 3.973), Maternity waiting home near respondents residence (AOR 2.019, 95% CI: 1.168 - 3.488) and history of child birth (AOR 1.759, 95% CI: 0.989 - 3.127) Were the independent factors associated with intention to use maternity waiting home.

Conclusion and Recommendation: The findings of this study revealed that the intention to use maternal waiting homes was moderate as compared to the previous study. Attending pregnant women's conference, history for obstetric complications, maternity waiting home near the respondent’s residence and history of childbirth were the determinant factors of the intention to use a maternity waiting home.

Keywords: Intention; Maternity Waiting Homes; Pregnant Women

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