Alemayehu Desale*
Preconception care is defined as "the provision of health-related biomedical, behavioral, and social interventions in the period before conception. Preconception care can effectively inform women on how to identify and reduce risk factors for Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes including birth defects, fatal loss, low birth weight, and preterm delivery thus reducing maternal and neonatal morbidity and mortality rate. Women's Knowledge of Preconception care has not been well understood in a resource-limited country like Ethiopia.
A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted on 673 women living in the selected kebele. A multistage sampling technique was used to select the study units. Data were analyzed using binary regression to determine the relationship between factors and the outcome variable at a p-value less than 0.05 then multiple logistic regression were used to compare the relationships of those significantly associated with the outcome. A total of 660 participants were involved in the study with a response rate of 98%. Thirty- three percent of the participants had good knowledge about preconception care. Using bivariate analysis, the candidate variables that showed association with outcome variables at p-value <0.25 were age, marital status, mother's occupation, mother's education, husband's education, and STI treatment. The result of multivariate analysis showed mother's occupation and mother's educational status were significantly associated with good knowledge of preconception care. Those worker mothers were 2.6 times more likely to have good knowledge than housewife mothers with CI (2.10-3.41) at p-value 0.02. Literate mothers were 4.5 times more likely to have good knowledge about preconception care as compared to illiterate mothers with CI (3.25-5.01) at p-value 0.001. The knowledge of PCC among women was very low and associated with women's educational status and whether they had occupations or not. To increase the knowledge of women about the PCC, the zonal health bureau, and NGOs working on the maternal issue should have to train and supervise health extension workers deeply on PCC.
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