UNINTENDED PREGNANCY AND ITS ASSOCIATED FACTORS IN MI’ESO WOREDA, WEST HARARGHE ZONE, OROMIA REGIONAL STATE, EASTERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

Unintended pregnancy is a public health problem that can lead to negative health outcomes for both the mother and children. Globally, an estimated 44% of pregnancies and 23% of births are unintended, of which 56% ended in abortion. As to my level of knowledge, little is known about prevalence and associated factors of unintended pregnancy in Eastern Ethiopia in general and Mi’eso Woreda in particular. Objectives: To assess prevalence and factors associated with unintended pregnancy in Mi’eso Woreda, West Hararghe, Oromia Region, Eastern Ethiopia, 2020. Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted among 508 pregnant women residing in eight randomly selected kebeles in the woreda. Simple random sampling was used to select study participants and pretested structured questionnaire was used to collect data via face to face interview. The collected data were cleaned, cross checked, edited, coded and entered in to Epi-Data 3.1 and exported to SPSS 21 for analysis. Binary and multiple logistic regressions were fitted to assess factors associated with unintended pregnancy. Odds ratio with 95 % confidence interval was used to describe association and level of significance was declared at p-value < 0.05. Result: Of 508 pregnant women included in the study, 173 (34.1%) women reported unintended pregnancy: mistimed (78.6%) and unwanted (21.4%). Rural residence (AOR=2.95, 95% CI: 1.7-5.1), parity of >5 (AOR=3.03, 95% CI: 1.5-6.02), age at first pregnancy <20 years (AOR=4.4, 95% CI: 2.6-7.4), history of abortion (AOR=5.4, 95 CI: 3.1-9.5), lack of contraception awareness (AOR=2.45,95% CI: 1.2-5.2) and had no discussion about family planning with husband (AOR=2.63, 95% CI: 1.5-4.5) were significantly associated with unintended pregnancy. Conclusion: In this study the prevalence of unintended pregnancy was high, majority of which were mistimed. Strong postpartum counseling about family planning is required to reduce the high mistimed pregnancy