Prevalence and factors associated with late antenatal care visit among pregnant women in Lushoto, Tanzania

Background: Adequate utilization of antenatal health care services is associated with improved maternal and neonatal health outcomes. The World Health Organization recommends pregnant women to attend antenatal care services as early as in the first trimester. However, many women due to various reasons fail to meet the recommendations. The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence and factors associated with late antenatal booking among pregnant women in Lushoto district of north-eastern Tanzania.
Methods: This hospital based cross sectional study involved pregnant women and was conducted in August-September 2015. A standardized questionnaire was used to obtain participants demographic characteristics and obstetrics history. Data analysis was done using (SPSS) and relationship between outcome variables and exposure variable was done using Chi-square test. Multivariate logistic regression was used to measure the association.
Results: A total of 240 participants were involved in the study. Out of these, 169 (70.4%) participants booked late for antenatal care (ANC) services. Delayed booking was mainly associated with not being married (AOR=3.08; 95%CI 1.149-8.275; P value=0.025) and unemployment (AOR=4.28; 95% CI 2.11-8.679; p-value=0.000)
Conclusion: Late first antenatal clinic visit was high in Lushoto, and was highly associated with unmarried and unemployment status. Therefore, provision of continuous health education and community sensitization on the importance of timely seeking ANC services should be strengthened.