Abstract:
Background:Preconception health refers to things women can do before and between pregnancies to
increase the chance of having a healthy baby and being a healthy mother .Unfortunately, millions of
women in the world do not have access to pre-pregnancy, pregnancy health services and childbirth with
suitable quality. Therefore Addressing this important topic and coming up with necessary information is
helpful to improve maternal and child health in our country.
Objectives: To assess Utilization of Preconception Care and Associated Factors among Reproductive Age
group Women in Debre Birhan Town, North Shewa, Ethiopia, 2017.
Methods: community based cross-sectional study with both quantitative and qualitative method of data
collection was employed from March 1st to 30, 2017.Systematic sampling technique was used to select a
total of 424 reproductive age women. Thedata was collected using pre-tested and structured
questionnaire and eight in-depth interviews were done using interview guide. The collected data was
coded and entered to Epi data 3.5.1and exported to SPSS version 21 for cleaning and analysis.
Descriptive statistics like frequency table and graphs were used for data presentation. Factors with pvalue < 0.25 in bivariate analysis were entered to multivariate logistic regression and statistical
significance was considered at p-value < 0.05. OR and 95% CI were used to show the strength and
significancy of the association.
Result: A total of 410 subjects were participated with a response rate of 96.7%.The overall utilization of
Preconception care was 13.4%. Women’s age, marital status, knowledge and availability of unit for
preconception care were significantly associated with utilization of preconception care with (AOR:
3.567; 95% CI: 1.082, 11.758), (AOR: 0.062;95% CI: 0.007, 0.585), (AOR= 6.263; 95% CI: 2.855,
13.739) and AOR: 13.938; 95% CI: 3.516, 55.251) respectively.
Conclusions: The finding of this study showed that women’s utilization of preconception care is low.
Therefore, establishing preconception care strategies which can address all the components of the care
and understanding the views of reproductive age women’s and care providers will be essential when
designing effective implementation strategies for improving delivery and uptake of preconception care.
