Abstract:
Background: All pregnant women are at risk and can face problems at any time during or following pregnancy and child birth which can cause death of mothers. Around 15% of pregnant women develop a potentially life-threatening obstetrics complication that calls for skilled care and obstetrical intervention to survive.
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess knowledge about obstetrics danger signs and its associated factors among pregnant women in Angolela Tera woreda, North Shewa, Ethiopia.
Methods: A community based, cross-sectional study was conducted from April 1-30, 2019.Data on pregnant women was collected using a pre-tested and interviewer administered structured questionnaire from 563 women using Stratified sampling followed by cluster sampling technique. Data was entered into Epi data version 3.1 and it was exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis.Descriptive statistics was done to determine knowledge about obstetric danger signs and Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression was used to identify factors associated with knowledge about obstetric danger signs.
Results: A total of 563 pregnant women were enrolled in the study with the response rate of 100%. The study participants from selected rural kebeles constituted 85.25% . Only 211 (37. 5 %) pregnant women were knowledgeable about obstetric danger signs. Urban residence [AOR = 2.01; 95 % CI (1.02, 5.65)], women who had pregnancy conference [AOR =5.31; 95 % CI (2.8, 10.1)] and formal education [AOR = 4.01; 95 % CI (2.35, 7.38)] were associated with being knowledgeable about obstetric danger signs.
Conclusion and recommendation: A significant proportion of pregnant women were not knowledgeable about obstetric danger signs. This indicates that lack of recognition may lead to delay in seeking care. Increasing knowledge of key danger signs, creating and promoting pregnancy conference participation need to be continuously done at the health facility and the community as it makes ready women and their families for prompt and appropriate decisions and measures in case of obstetric danger sign.
