Abstract:
Introduction: unintended pregnancy is a cause for many maternal and child illness and death. Besides, it’s bad complication; it is an obstacle to country development and decrease quality of individual life. According to Ethiopian demographic health survey 2011, 29% of pregnancies in Ethiopia are unintended. Unlike to this, there is no parallel data or known proportion and factors in the study area.
Objective: The main objective of this study is to assess the proportion and associated factors of unintended pregnancy in Debrebrehan,north Showa zone,Amhara, Ethiopia in 2014.
Method: A community based cross sectional study was conducted in Debrebrehan rural and urban Kebelesfrom July 1-30, 2014.Stratified cluster sampling technique was employed to recruit a total of 697 pregnant mothers. Data was collected by interviewer administered pretested and semi structured questionnaire.SPSS version 20 was used for data analysis andbinary and multiple logistic regression was applied. Odds ratio at the confidence level of 95% and P- value < 0.05 were considered as a significant.
Result: A total of 690 mothers participatedwith a response rate of 98.99%. Proportion of unintended pregnancy found to be 23.5%.Out of which 12.9% are mistimed and 10.58% are unwanted. Formerly married (AOR 8.42: 4.07, 17.39) and never married (AOR 9.21: 4.27, 19.86), estimated time to walk to the nearest health facility>80minutes (AOR 3.56: 1.69, 7.53), > 5 gravidity (AOR 3.88:1.41, 10.69), 1-2 parity (AOR 0.43: 0.21, 0.87) and partner disagreement on desire number of children(AOR4.09: 2.07, 8.08) are factors significantly associated with unintended pregnancy.
Conclusion and Recommendation:Proportion of unintended pregnancyin the study area was found to be high.Women who werenever married and formerly married, travel>80 minute to the nearest health facility, >5 gravidity, 1-2 parity and partner disagreement on desire number of child shows a significant association with unintended pregnancy.High effort needed to be worked on this target groups by counseling,health education and providing contraceptive service by collaboratingwith their
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