UNINTENDED PREGNANCY AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG PREGNANT WOMEN ATTENDING ANTENATAL CARE IN MEKELLE CITY PUBLIC HEALTH FACILITIES, TIGRAY REGION, ETHIOPIA, 2025

Abstract

Unintended pregnancy is an important public health problem for women of child - bearing age, because of its negative impacts on health and social for both mothers and children. Unintended pregnancy causes maternal mortality and morbidity. Worldwide, although unplanned pregnancies seem to be decreasing, 38% of pregnancies are unintended. In sub-Saharan Africa, unintended pregnancy accounts for more than a quarter of the 40 million pregnancies that occur annually. In Ethiopia, about 17% and 8% of pregnancies are mistimed and unwanted, respectively. But, there is lack of information particularity post-conflict recovery in the study area on the prevalence of unintended pregnancy and its associated factors. To assess the prevalence and associated factors of unintended pregnancy among pregnant women attending antenatal care in Mekelle City Public Health Facility, Tigray region, Ethiopia, 2025. A facility-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 394 Pregnant women attending ANC in Mekelle City Public Health Facility. A simple random sampling technique was used to select study health facilities and a systematic random sampling technique was used to select study participants. Data was collected via face-to-face interview using a structured questionnaire. Data were entered into SPSS version 25 for analysis. Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate logistic regression analyzes were used to identify the association. Variables that showed a P-value of less than 0.25 during the bivariate analysis were used and were entered into a multivariate logistic regression model to identify their independent effects. Odds ratio with a 95% CI & p value of less than 0.05 were computed to assess the presence and degree of statistical association between dependent and independent variables. The overall magnitude of unintended pregnancy was 32.7% with 95% CI (27.9, 38.1). Of those, 89.1% were mistimed and 10.9% were unwanted. The multiple logistic regression results revealed that, age group from 15 to 24 (AOR=4.702,95% CI 1.948,11.348). The women and husband’s decision in the family planning (AOR=0.292,95% CI 0.155,0.551), family size of 3-5(AOR=2.730,95%CI 1.512,4.930) and family size of≥6(AOR=3.967,95%CI 1.228,12.817), no formal education (AOR=3.336, 95%CI 1.340,8.308) were significantly associated with unintended pregnancy. There is no single factor accounted for the relatively high of unintended pregnancy rather many factors were interwoven to affect the event. Efforts should be made to scale up shared decision-making power in family planning services and there is the need to promote family planning services and awareness to minimize unintended pregnancy.