Abstract:
Abstract
Background: - Maternity waiting homes (MWHs) are residential facilities located near a health
facility to accommodate women in their final weeks of pregnancy to bridge the geographic gap
in obstetric care between rural and urban areas and areas with poor access to a facility. Thus, to
save the life of mothers, World health organization (WHO), adopted MWH as one component of
a comprehensive package to prevent maternal morbidity and mortality to those women from the
remote area but later it used for risky pregnancy. Yet, there is a shortage of information on the
magnitude of intention and utilization of MWH among pregnant women in the study area.
Objective: To assess intention to use maternity waiting home and associated factors among
pregnant women in Hargeisa city Somaliland.
Methods: Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted from April to May 2021in
Hargeisa health facilities using 422 pregnant women who were selected by systematic random
sampling technique. Interviewer administered structured questionnaire wasused to collect data.
The data were entered into EPI data version 4.6 and exported to SPSS version 20 for further
analysis.
Descriptive statistics, bivariate logistic regression and Multivariable logistic regression were
used to analyze the data. Odds ratio along with 95% confidence interval was used to measure the
strength of association, level of statistical significance was decided at P-value <0.05.
Results: A Total of 245 (58 %),[95% CI, 53.1, 62.8] pregnant womenhad intended to use
maternity waiting home. After adjusting for possible confounders, the result of multivariate
analysis revealed that level of education (AOR=5.40, 95%CI: 3.01, 9.69); Pregnant women with
past experience of utilizing MWH (AOR=3.80, 95%CI: 2.32, 6.27).Multigravida pregnant
women (AOR=2.2, 95 % CI: 1.16, 4.29). Subjective norms (AOR=1.8, 95 % CI: 1.05, 3.11;
indirect attitude towards use of MWH (AOR=1.9, 95% CI: 1.01, 3.92); Indirect subjective norms
(AOR=2.0, 95%CI: 1.16, 3.60); were significantly associated with pregnant women’s intention
to use maternity waiting home
Conclusion:The study revealed that only (58%) of pregnant women were intended to use MWH,
Considering these findings, the following conclusions can be made.formal education, past MWH
experience ,gravidity,favorable SN, indirect attitude and favorable indirect SN were significantly
associated with intention to use MWH.
Key words: -maternity waiting home, intention to use, Somaliland, pregnant women
