TRACHOMA PREVENTION PRACTICE AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG MOTHERS HAVING CHILDREN AGED UNDER NINE YEARS IN ANDABET DISTRICT, NORTHWEST ETHIOPIA, 2022 :A MULTI-LEVEL ANALYSIS

Abstract

Abstract Background: The world health organization adopted the Surgery, Antibiotic, facial cleanness and environmental improvement (SAFE)strategy for prevention of trachoma and different prevention strategies were implemented in Andabet district. However, the prevalence of trachoma is still higher and as far as our search is concerned, inadequate study is there, in Andabet district, regarding the trachoma prevention practice (TPP). Objective: To assess trachoma prevention practice and associated factors among mothers having children aged under nine years in Andabet district, Northwest Ethiopia. Methods: : A community-based cross-sectional study involving 624 participants was conducted from June 1- 30, 2022. The collected data was entered into Epi -Data version 4.6 and exported to SPSS version 22 and Stata 16 for recoding and analysis, respectively. Proportion of TPP was reported and multi -level binary logistic regression analysis was used to identify factors associated with poor TPP. Four models were fitted and the best fitted model was selected based on the random effect analyses and Deviance. Variables which had p<0.05 in the best fitted model were declared to be significantly associated with poor TPP. Results: In this study, the proportion of poor TPP was found to be 50.16% (95%CI=46.23,54.08). In the multi variable multi-level logistic regression, being having no formal education (AOR= 2.95; 95%CI: 1.41,6.15) and primary education (AOR= 2.33; 95%CI:1.04, 5.24, being farmer (AOR=3.02; 95%CI:1.73,5.28), and merchant (AOR=2.63; 95%CI:1.20, 5.75), time taken to water point >30 minutes (AOR=4.60,95CI:1.30,16.26) and didn’t take health education about trachoma (AOR=2.36;95CI:1.16,4.79) were significantly associated with poor TPP. Conclusion and recommendation: The proportion of poor trachoma prevention practice was high relative to other studies. Special attention should be given for those who didn’t have formal education and who travel more time to water point. Moreover, health education towards trachoma and its prevention should be strengthened. Key word: Trachoma, Trachoma prevention practice, multi-level analysis, random effect analysis, fixed effect analysis