Factors associated with late antenatal enrolment among pregnant women aged 15-49 years at Masindi Hospital

Abstract

Early ANC attendance is vital for early identification of pregnancy related health risks to either mother or baby or both, and interventions instituted. This results in good delivery outcomes. The main objective of this study was to assess the factors associated with late antenatal care enrollment among pregnant mothers of 15–49 years at Masindi district hospital. Analytical cross-sectional study using quantitative method was used. The study included 380participants. A semi-structured questionnaire was used and SPSS 16.0software was used to analyses the results. The proportion of late enrollment into ANC was 81.1% since they made their first ANC visit after 12 weeks. Late enrolment for ANC was independently associated with being Protestants (AOR-9.043; 95% CI-1.089-90.821; p-0.042), knowledge that the right time for first ANC is after 28 weeks of pregnancy (AOR-3.019; 95% CI-1.001-6.342; p-0.000), knowledge that right time to seek first pregnancy was immediately (AOR-0.007; 95% CI- .001-.093; p-0.007), knowledge on the recommended number of ANC visits as four times(AOR-0.777; 95% CI-294-.890; p-0.001), among others. It was also associated with disagreeing that Antenatal care follow-up is good to monitor mother’s and fetus’s health (AOR-33.189; 95% CI-2.639-42.419; p-0.019), strongly disagreeing that Antenatal care follow-up is good to monitor mother’s and fetus’s health (AOR-36.348; 95% CI-4.365- 92.711; p-0.009). The general proportion of late enrollment for ANC was high at 81.1% and knowledge of women on ANC, social demographic characterizes attitude and played key role in women attending ANC on time.