Introduction. Obstetric danger signs are those signs that a pregnant woman will see or those symptoms that she will feel which indicate that something is going wrong with her or with the pregnancy. Evidence on the prevalence of obstetric danger signs and contributing factors were crucial in designing programs in the global target of reducing maternal morbidity and mortality. Objective. To assess the prevalence of obstetric danger signs during pregnancy and associated factors among mothers in a Shashemene rural district, South Ethiopia. Methods. A community-based cross-sectional study design was conducted among 395 randomly selected women who gave birth in the last six months. A pretested interviewer-administered questionnaire was utilized. Data were cleaned, coded, and entered into Epi data manager version 4.1 and then exported to SPSS version 20. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regression analyses were employed to assess the association between independent variables with the outcome variable. Statistical significance was declared at p<0.05. Result. One hundred sixty-three (41.3%) of women had a history of obstetric danger signs during pregnancy. The most prevalent obstetric danger signs were vaginal bleeding (15.4%) followed by swelling of the body 12.7% and severe vomiting 5.3%. Women who have less than four times antenatal care visits were 6.7 times more likely to experience obstetric danger signs (AOR 6.7 (95% CI 3.05, 14.85)) compared to those who had antenatal care visit four times and above. Women who have inadequate knowledge of obstetric danger signs were 2.5 times more likely to experience obstetric danger signs during pregnancy (AOR 2.5 (95% CI 1.34, 4.71)), and primigravida women were 6.3 times more likely to have obstetric danger signs during pregnancy (AOR 6.3 (95% CI 2.61, 15.09)) compared to multiparous women. Conclusion. About half of the pregnant mothers have experienced at least one obstetric danger signs. Public health interventions on maternal health should give priority to the prevalent causes of obstetric danger signs, strengthening completion of four antenatal care visits and health education on obstetric danger signs for pregnant mothers at community level especially for primgravid women.
The study was conducted in the Shashemene district, located in West Arsi Zone, Oromia regional state, Ethiopia. The total population of the district was estimated to be 265,109 based on the woreda health office report of 2018. The district was 225 km south of Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia. It was divided into 33 kebeles (small administrative units) with health infrastructures of 8 health centers and 33 health posts. The study was conducted from April 20 to May 21, 2018. The study has a community-based cross-sectional study design. Randomly selected mothers who gave birth in the Shashemene rural district within the last six months during the data collection period were included, while women who are seriously ill and unable to perform interviews and mothers who complain illness of their neonates and/or infants were excluded. The sample size of the study was determined by using the Epi Info version 7.1.1 StatCalc with the assumptions of 95% confidence level, p = prevalence of mothers experienced vaginal bleeding was 19.1% (10), d =4% (marginal errors), Finally, by adding a nonresponse rate of 10%, n = 407. Ten kebeles were selected by using a simple random sampling (lottery) method from thirty-three kebeles in the Shashemene rural district. Then, the census was conducted to register all mothers who gave birth within the last six months to prepare the sampling frame. Proportion to size allocation for each of the ten kebeles based on the number of eligible mothers for the study was done based on census results. Code given for households of eligible mothers during the census was used as a sampling frame for the final selection of the mothers. Finally, computer-generated random numbers were used to recruit study participants. Obstetric danger signs (ODS) refers to the loss of consciousness; persistent vomiting; severe persistent abdominal pain; vaginal bleeding; swelling of face, fingers and feet; blurring of vision; fits of pregnancy; severe recurrent frontal headache; and high-grade fever. Gravidity refers to a total number of pregnancies. Kebele is the lowest administrative structure next to the district. A woman who experienced at least one of the ODS (loss of consciousness; persistent vomiting; severe persistent abdominal pain; vaginal bleeding; swelling of face, fingers, and feet; blurring of vision; fits of pregnancy; severe recurrent frontal headache; and high-grade fever) was categorized as has ODS and no ODS otherwise. Knowledge of ODS was assessed by asking 21 questions, and participants who scored a mean above score was categorized as having adequate knowledge of ODS, otherwise inadequate knowledge [10–13]. The questionnaire was prepared after a review of different literature and modified to suit and relate to the study objective and the area's context from different materials. Questionnaires have sociodemographic factor, maternal factor, and health facility-related factor parts. The questionnaire was partially adapted from the survey tools developed by JHPIEGO Maternal and Neonatal Health program and contextualized according to local contexts. The questionnaire was adapted to fit the study area population context and to meet the objectives of the study. An interviewer-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect the data from mothers who gave birth in the Shashemene district. The questionnaires were first developed in English and then translated into Afaan Oromo, and then translated back to English again to check its consistency. Six diploma nurses with experiences in survey data collection and two health officers as supervisors participated in the data collection process after two-day training was given by the principal investigator. During the data collection period, the data collectors and supervisors were guided by health development army leaders in each kebele so that they can easily access the houses of each sampled house of women who gave birth within the last six months. The data collectors were given the list of women who gave birth within the last six months in each kebele to be interviewed. The pretest was carried out at Arsi Nagelle district, five days before the actual data collection date, which was outside of the study area and has similar sociodemographic characteristics. During the procedure, the data collectors interview the participants in a private area to increase the confidentiality of the participants. Various activities were performed to assure the quality of data, and data collectors were selected carefully based on clearly established criteria of diploma nurses who were experienced in data collections and currently not working in the kebeles. Before data collection, both interviewers and supervisors were trained in the interview approach, ways to maintain confidentiality, and the privacy of the study participants for two days. The appropriateness of the questionnaire in terms of content, consistency, language, and organization was checked and was modified. The English version prepared questionnaire was translated to the local language (Afaan Oromo) by a person knowing both the languages. Then, another individual who had very good knowledge of both English and Afaan Oromo language translated the Afaan Oromo version back to English to check for its original meaning. The questionnaire was pretested on 21 respondents (5%of sample size) in Arsi Nagelle woreda that had similar characteristics with the study population. The pretest findings were discussed among data collectors, supervisors, and the investigator to ensure a better understanding of the data collection process. Based on the pretest, questions were revised, edited, and those found to be unclear or confusing were modified. To reduce nonresponse rate and unwanted confusion, necessary information and description were given to respondents before initiating the interview. Finally, a structured Afaan Oromo version questionnaire was used for data collection. The principal investigator and supervisor supervised the data collection process. The data quality was controlled by close supervision with aggressive monitoring. Every day, 10% of the completed questionnaires were reviewed and checked for completeness and consistency by the supervisors and principal investigator and the necessary feedback offered to data collectors in the next morning before the data collection begins. To control the quality of the data processing, the data was checked for its completeness before data entry and the inconsistent data was checked to refer to the hard copy of the questionnaire. Quantitative data were entered into Epi data manager version 4.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis. The cleaning process was done by running a simple frequency after data entry for its consistency. Errors related to inconsistency of data such as missing values and outliers were checked and considered during data cleaning. Descriptive statistics using frequencies, percentages, mean, and standard deviation were used to describe findings. The frequency distributions of the variables were worked out using tables and figures. Bivariable analysis using logistic regression was done and all explanatory variables which have an association with the outcome variable at a p value of less than 0.25 were selected as candidates for multivariable analysis. Multicollinearity between the candidate variables was checked with a minimum tolerance level at 0.2. Hence, variables with a p value of less than 0.25 in the bivariate logistic regression analysis were entered into a multivariable logistic regression model. Then, multivariable analysis using a backward stepwise selection method was done to control for possible confounding variables and to determine the presence of a statistically significant association between explanatory variables and the outcome variable. The level of statistical significance was declared at a p value of < 0.05, and AOR with 95% CI was used to measure the degree of association between independent variables and the outcome variable. Model fitness was checked using Hosmer and Lame show goodness-of-fit test. Finally, the dependent variable was organized as a binary variable with two categories: ODS present (1) and absent (0). The principal component analysis was conducted to set the wealth/economic status of pregnant women. Before analysis, sample adequacy was checked, and after, the assumption of sampling adequacy was fulfilled; then, the appropriateness of the principal component analysis was checked. After that, variables were included and removed where decided. Then, principal component extraction was used to extract variables. The correlation coefficient between the variables (rows) and the principal component was checked. A total of 9 items on household assets were analyzed using the principal component analysis method after checking the fulfillment of assumptions using the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure of sampling adequacy and Bartlett's test of sphericity. Finally, the wealth status of pregnant mothers was classified as low wealth status, medium-high wealth status, and high wealth status depending on the mean value of assets of the mother's score.
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