Individual and community-level factors associated with women’s utilization of postnatal care services in Uganda, 2016: a multilevel and spatial analysis
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Date
2024-02
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
BioMed Central Ltd
Abstract
Abstract
Background Over time, Uganda has experienced high levels of maternal mortality (435 deaths per 100,000 live
births in 2006 to 336 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2016). The persistence of high levels of maternal mortality jeopardizes the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3.1, which calls for reducing maternal mortality to 70
deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030. Conversely, the utilization of postnatal care (PNC) services in Uganda remained
very low and has varied across regions. This study examined the individual and community-level factors influencing
women’s utilization of postnatal care services in Uganda.
Methods Secondary data from the 2016 Uganda Demographic and Health Survey (UDHS) were used in this study.
The study population consisted of women aged 15 to 49 who reported giving birth in the five years preceding
the 2016 UDHS survey. The factors associated with postnatal care services were identified using multilevel binary
logistic regression and spatial analysis.
Results The result shows that the prevalence of postnatal care service utilization in Uganda was low (58.3%) compared to the World Health Organization (WHO) target of 100%. The univariate analysis shows that 13.7% of women
were adolescents, 79% were of higher parity, and 70.4% had primary/no formal education, of which 76.6% resided
in rural areas. On the other hand, the multilevel analysis results showed that women aged 20-29 years and 30-39
years were also found to be more likely to use PNC services (AOR = 1.2, 95% CI: 1.01-1.47). Women who received
quality ANC (AOR = 2.1, 95% CI: 1.78–2.36) were more likely to use postnatal care services than their counterparts.
At the community level, women who lived in media-saturated communities were more likely to use postnatal care
services (AOR = 1.3, 95% CI: 1.01–1.65). The spatial analysis found that the Central, Eastern, and Northern regions were
the areas of hotspots in the utilization of postnatal care services.
Conclusion This study found that age, parity, level of education, place of residence, employment status, quality
of the content of antenatal care, and community media saturation were the predictors of postnatal care service
utilization. The spatial analysis showed that the spatial distributions of postnatal care service utilization were significantly varied across Uganda. The government must expand access to various forms of media throughout the country
to increase PNC utilization.
Description
Keywords
Individual and community level factors, Postnatal care services utilization, Spatial analysis, Uganda
Citation
Towongo, Moses Festo, Enock Ngome, Kannan Navaneetham, et al. 'Individual and Community-Level Factors Associated with Women's Utilization of Postnatal Care Services in Uganda, 2016: A Multilevel and Spatial Analysis', BMC Health Services Research, vol. 24/no. 1, (2024), pp. 185-185.