Impact of the Changes in Women’s Characteristics over Time on Antenatal Health Care Utilization in Egypt (2000-2008)

Abstract

Objectives: This study empirically assesses the impact of the changes in women's characteristics, empowerment, availability and quality of health services on woman's decision to use antenatal care (ANC) and the frequency of that use during the period 2000-2008. Study Design: The study is a cross-sectional analytical study using 2000 and 2008 Egypt Demographic and Health Surveys. Methods: The assessment of the studied impact is conducted using the Zero-inflated Negative Bi-nomial Regression. In addition, Factor Analysis technique is used to construct some of the expla-natory variables such as women's empowerment, the availability and quality of health services in-dicators. Results: Utilization of antenatal health care services is greatly improved from 2000 to 2008. Availability of health services is one of the main determinants that affect the number of an-tenatal care visits in 2008. Wealth index and quality of health services play an important role in raising the level of antenatal care utilization in 2000 and 2008. However, the impact of the termi-nated pregnancy on receiving ANC increased over time. Conclusions: Further research of the de-terminants of antenatal health care utilization is needed, using more updated measures of wo-men's empowerment, availability and quality of health services. In order to improve the provision of antenatal health care services, it is important to understand barriers to antenatal health care utilization. Therefore, it is advisable to collect information from women about the reasons for not receiving antenatal care.