Abstract:
Background: The cost of maternal complications is considered as an important factor hindering
the utilization of maternal health care services and has serious economic consequences to the
households. However, reliable information of estimate of spending on maternal complication
was lacking. Thus, this study was assessed this gap by examining the costs associated with
seeking care for maternal complications to serve for sound budgeting and decision making in the
health care system.
Objective: To estimate the cost of maternal complications and associated factors among
mother‟s attending Hawassa public hospitals, Sidama Regional state, Ethiopia.
Methods: An institutional based cross-sectional study design was conducted among 348
randomly selected mothers attending public hospitals in Hawassa from November 15 to
December 15, 2021. A pre tested and structured questionnaire was used for data collection using
interviewer-administered approach. Data was coded and entered into Epi Data version 3.1 and
exported to STATA version 16.0 for data cleaning and analysis. Direct and indirect medical and
non-medical costs were estimated using appropriate descriptive statistics. Simple linear
regression at a p-value of less than 0.25 was used to identify factors independently associated
with the outcome variable. Then to control for the effect of confounding, multiple linear
regression analysis was done. Correlation coefficient along with 95% CI was used to present the
finding and p<0.05 was used to declare statistical significance.
Results: This study found that total median cost of maternal complications was 4895.5
(IQR=3779) ETB, The total median direct medical cost was 1765.5 (IQR=1649.5) ETB, and the
total direct non-medical cost was 2840 (IQR=2470). Number of day absent [(R=0.028; 95% CI:
(0.023, 0.033)], distance from facility [(R=0.001; 95% CI: (0.000, 0.002)], Site of laboratory
diagnosis [(R= 0.230; 95% CI: (0.140, .320)], number of laboratory test conducted [(R=0.045;
95% CI: (.021, 0.069)], were found to be significant predictors of maternal complications costs.
Conclusions: The total median cost of maternal complications in current study was high.
Respondents' site of diagnosis, number of days missed from work, number of laboratory tests,
and distance from hospitals were independent predictors of maternal complications cost.
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Governments have to introduce policies and strategies that specifically help complicated mothers
to reduce their cost.
