Objective: To identify individual-, household- and community-level factors associated with maternity waiting home (MWH) use in Ethiopia.
Design: Cross-sectional analysis of baseline household survey data from an ongoing cluster-randomised controlled trial using multilevel analyses.
Setting: Twenty-four rural primary care facility catchment areas in Jimma Zone, Ethiopia.
Participants: 3784 women who had a pregnancy outcome (live birth, stillbirth, spontaneous/induced abortion) 12 months prior to September 2016.
Outcome measure: The primary outcome was self-reported MWH use for any pregnancy; hypothesised factors associated with MWH use included woman's education, woman's occupation, household wealth, involvement in health-related decision-making, companion support, travel time to health facility and community-levels of institutional births.
Results: Overall, 7% of women reported past MWH use. Housewives (OR: 1.74, 95% CI 1.20 to 2.52), women with companions for facility visits (OR: 2.15, 95% CI 1.44 to 3.23), wealthier households (fourth vs first quintile OR: 3.20, 95% CI 1.93 to 5.33) and those with no health facility nearby or living >30 min from a health facility (OR: 2.37, 95% CI 1.80 to 3.13) had significantly higher odds of MWH use. Education, decision-making autonomy and community-level institutional births were not significantly associated with MWH use.
Conclusions: Utilisation inequities exist; women with less wealth and companion support experienced more difficulties in accessing MWHs. Short duration of stay and failure to consider MWH as part of birth preparedness planning suggests local referral and promotion practices need investigation to ensure that women who would benefit the most are linked to MWH services.
Keywords: community child health; epidemiology; ethiopia; institutional births; maternity waiting home; obstetrics.
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