Prevalence of Unsafe Abortion and Associated Factors Among Women Attending The Maternal and Child Health Units of Public Health Centers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
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Date
2017-02
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Background; unsafe abortion in Ethiopia has long been recognized as among a leading cause
of deaths and injuries to women. However there is limited scientific information available on
the women who seek unsafe abortion, factors which may be a cause for unsafe abortion.
Objectives; The objective was to assess the prevalence of unsafe abortion and associated risk
factors among women attending maternal and child health units in public health centers in
Addis Ababa.
Methods; Institution based cross sectional study design was employed among 422 women
attending maternal and child health unit of selected health centres between September to
October 2016 in Addis Ababa A structured interviewer administered questionnaire was used.
The collected data was entered using Epi data 3.0 and analyzed using IBM Statistical
Package for Social Sciences version 20.0. Descriptive statistics was used to describe the
study variables. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the relative effect of
determinants. A P<0.05 was considered statistically significant.
Results; About 422 women invited to participate and asked for consent. About 20 excluded
due to incomplete responses and refusal yielding 95.3% response rate. Among who have ever
been pregnant (279), about 114(31%) had abortions in their life, of these, unsafe abortion was
reported by 30 women (26%). Regarding the independent predictors, those who have
completed primary education and above were about 10 times less likely in comparison with
those women whose educational status was below primary level, in comparison with those
women who replied abortion is legal, those who said it is allowed only in some cases were
about 7 times more likely and those who replied not sure about its legalization were more
than 8 times more likely , compared with those women who have no live child currently;
those mothers who have more than 3 children and1- 2 children were about ninety seven and
twelve times more likely to have unsafe abortion.
Conclusion; Unsafe abortion is found to be high in Addis Ababa. Factors which include
maternal educational status, knowledge regarding the legalization status of abortion in
Ethiopia, number of pregnancy and number of live children were found to be determinants of
unsafe abortion. Hence, health education regarding unwanted pregnancy, disseminating
information regarding the legal status of abortion as well as educating women is
recommended.
Key words; unsafe abortion, prevalence, risk factors
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Keywords
Unsafe abortion, Prevalence, Risk Factors