Abstract:
Background: In Ethiopia 11000 women die annually from maternal cause. It is maternal morbidity and mortality is a major of problems in Ethiopia and no more evidence is not available on maternal health seeking behavior for obstetric danger signs. Assessing of maternal health care seeking practice and identifying factors which alters maternal appropriate health care seeking action is very important to design appropriate interventions that enables effective in reducing maternal mortality and ensuring safe pregnancies and deliver Objective: To assess health care seeking behavior about obstetric danger signs and its associated factor among pregnant and delivered mothers in 1 year prior to the study period in Kewot districts, 2019. Method: A community based cross-sectional study design which was incorporating both quantitative and qualitative methods was conducted from Apr, 20 -30, 2019 in Kewot district, North shoa Zone, at Amara Region in Ethiopia. Interviewer administered semi-structured questionnaire and in-depth interview guide were used to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. A total of 363 women and 3 key informant and 5 mother were interviewed. Data was entered to Epi data version 3.1.1 and analyzed using SPSS version 21. Binary logistic regressions model was done to identify the associated factors. Odds ratios with 95% CI were used to measure the strength of association and variables with p. value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: A total of 363 participants were involved in the study. Among participants 211(58.1 %) at (95%CI; CI: 53.7%-63.1%)) were sought appropriate health care action. Most of participants that reported danger sign were during pregnancy (63.8%).The most commonly reported danger signs during pregnancy were sever or continuous vomiting 164(16.9%), vaginal bleeding 144(14.8%) and severe headache 90(9.3%). Having ANC follow up, knowledge about danger sign, inability to judge the graveness of conditions, deciding alone on maternal own health care and low access health service were some identified factors.
Conclusion: prevalence of appropriate health care seeking action is low which is compared from national plan or WHO recommendations. Having no ANC follow up, poor knowledge about danger sign, inability to judge the graveness of conditions and inability to decide alone for own health care were factors that prevent appropriate health care seeking action.
