WOMEN’S DECISION MAKING AUTONOMY ON MATERNAL AND NEONATAL HEALTH CARE UTILIZATION AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS IN EZHA WOREDA, GURAGHE ZONE, SOUTHERN ETHIOPIA, 2022

Abstract

ABSTRACT Introduction: Women’s decision making autonomy is the ability of the women to make decisions regarding their own and neonate health care, and other socio-economic status. However, in developing countries there is limited women’s decision making autonomy on their and neonatal health care, which is the main underlying causes of poor utilization of maternal health care, and associated with high maternal and children morbidity and mortality. Despite its importance, little emphasis has been placed on factors associated with women’s decision making autonomy on maternal and neonatal health care in the study area. As such, this study intended to fill this research gap in the study setting. Methods: A community based cross-sectional study was conducted from March 15 to April 15, 2022. A simple random sampling method was used to select 466 women in the selected Kebeles. A structured, pretested and interviewer administered questionnaire was used to collect the data. Data were entered in Epi Data version 3.1 and exported to SPSS window version 26 for analysis. Bivariate and multivariable analyses were done to identify factors in the binary logistic regression model. A statistical significance declared at P-value < 0.05. Result: This study revealed that 71.5% (95% CI: 67.0%, 76.0%) of women had high decision making autonomy on maternal and neonatal health care utilization. Age between 24-35 years (AOR=2.78; 95%CI:1.31,5.91) and ≥ 35 years (AOR=4.24; 95%CI:1.85,9.71), husband primary educated (AOR=2.56; 95%CI:1.33,4.94) and above secondary educated (AOR=3.66; 95%CI:1.79,7.47), higher wealth index (AOR=0.47; 95%CI:0.24,0.91) and medium wealth index (AOR=0.38; 95%CI:0.19,0.76), husband involvement (AOR=6.19; 95%CI:3.56,10.74), knowledge on neonatal danger signs (AOR=2.07;95%CI:1.22,3.49), knowledgeable (AOR=2.72 6; 95%CI:1.33,5.56) and moderately knowledgeable on maternal health care services (AOR=2.81; 95% CI:1.32,5.97) were identified as significant factors. Conclusions and recommendations: This findings show that women’s decision-making autonomy in maternal and neonatal healthcare utilization was optimal. H