Magnitude and Associated Factors of Preeclampsia Among Pregnant Women who Attend Antenatal Care Service in Public Health Institutions in Arba Minch Town, Southern Ethiopia, 2016

Abstract

Background: Hypertensive disorders of Pregnancy are the major complications that cause about 60% to 80% of all maternal deaths. Preeclamcia is a major hypertensive disorder of pregnancy that had caused maternal mortalities and morbidities all round the world. Objective: To assess the prevalence and factors associated to preeclampsia among pregnant women attending antenatal care service. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from January 10 to February 09, 2016 among pregnant women who followed anti natal care at public health institutions in Arba Minch town. The study included 422 pregnant women who were selected using systematic random sampling. Semi-structured questionnaire was employed to collect data. The data were entered into EpiData version 3.1 and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Result: The prevalence of preeclampsia was 18.25%. The associated factors of preeclampsia were change of paternity: 4.08 (AOR=4.08; 95% CI: (1.17-14.266)), family history of hypertension: 3.52 (AOR=3.52; 95% CI: (1.31-9.45)) and alcohol use: 8.06 (AOR=8.06; 95% CI: (2.3-28.5)). Conclusion and recommendation: The finding of this study showed that considerable proportion of women had preeclampsia (18.25%). The study showed that different factors affect the occurrence of hypertension during pregnancy. It is important to give health education in order to make the women develop health seeking behavior so that they would get a chance to be diagnosed of preeclampsia as early as possible.