Abstract:
- Anemia is a serious ill-health which affects both mother and child and may lead
to maternal and child mortality. Iron folate supplementation is one of the key interventions and
cost-effective strategies for the prevention and control of iron deficiency anemia among pregnant
women. However; still there is low compliance to iron folate supplementation among
pregnant;which is 2.8% in study settingand its determinants were not well identified in this study
area.
Objective: - To assess determinants of compliance to iron folate supplementation among
pregnant women in Damot sore district, Wolaita Zone Southern Ethiopia, 2020.
Methods: - A facility-based unmatched case-control study was conducted from February to
march, 2020 using interviewer-administered questionnaires and consecutive sampling technique
was used to select study participants. Data were entered into Epidata 3.1 and exported to the
Statistical package for social science version 21.0 for analysis. Bivariable and multivariable
logistic regression were used to identify factors associated with iron folate supplementation.
Adjusted odds ratios (AOR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) and p-value<0.05 were used to
declare statistical significance.
Results: - A total of 309 pregnant women (103 cases and 206 controls) participated in this study.
Being rural dwellers [AOR (95%CI): 0.398(0.214-0.74)], pregnant women who couldnot read
and write[AOR (95%CI): 0.1(0.02-0.43)], could read and write[AOR (95%CI): 0.3(0.14-0.66)]
poor knowledge on iron folate supplementation [AOR (95%CI): 0.2(0.11-0.37)],counseling
about iron folate supplementation [AOR (95%CI): 0.34(0.18-0.64)] and negative perceptions
towards anemia and iron folate supplementationwere significantly associated with compliance to
iron folate supplementation at p-value of <0.05.
Conclusion: -This study revealed that place of residence, educational status of mothers,
knowledge about Iron folate supplementation, counseling about Iron folate supplementation, and
perceptions towards it were determinants of compliance to iron folate supplementation.
Therefore, an effort should carry out to improve compliance with iron-folate supplementation
among pregnant women in the study setting
