Abstract:
Background: Sexually transmitted disease (STD) in many developing countries contribute to enormous physical, social and economic consequence to the community and imminently to the pregnant mothers because of its additional adverse to the offspring. However, there are scanty of recent information on the magnitude and associated factors of sexually transmitted infections among pregnant women in Eastern Ethiopia, particularly in Harari region.
Objective: The study amid to assess magnitude of sexually transmitted disease and associated factors among pregnant women attending antenatal care follow up at public health facilities in Harari region, Eastern Ethiopia from July 01,30, 2022.
Methods: An institutional-based cross-sectional study design was conducted among 330 randomly selected pregnant mothers attending antenatal care in public health facilities of Harari region .A face-to- face interview using structured questionnaire was conducted during the client exit .The data was entered in to Epi data version 4.6 statistical package and exported to STATA version 16.0 for data cleaning and analysis. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the data. Binary logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with the outcome variable. Accordingly, variables having a p-value ≤ 0.20 in the bivariate binary regression analysis was entered into multivariate binary logistic regression models to control for possible confounders. The final result was presented using odds ratio along with 95% CI and statistical significance was declared at a p-value of <0.05.
Results: The current study reported that he prevalence of STD among pregnant mothers was 13.3% (95% CI: 9.6-17.3). Being a housewife [AOR=0.20, 95% CI: 0.05–0.70], attending primary educational level [AOR=4.19, 95% CI: 0.96-18.18] and previous history of abortion [AOR=2.10, 95% CI: 1.00-4.41] was significantly associated with magnitude of STD.
Conclusion: In the current study, high magnitude of STD was observed among pregnant women. Occupational status, primary level educational status and previous history of abortion were found significant factors for STD. Thus, STD prevention packages should be instituted targeting pregnant women with low educational status, experienced abortion, include students and risk employments during pregnancy.
