Postnatalcare Service Utilization and Associated Factors Among Mothers Who Gave Birth in the Past One Year: Community Based Crosesctional Study in Four Different Regions of Ethiopia

Background: Postnatal period is the first six weeks after birth and is critical to the health and survival of both a mother and newborn. Most maternal and infant deaths occur during this time. Yet, this is the most neglected period for the provision of quality care and the level of postnatal care coverage is the lowest maternal and child service utilized in Ethiopia. Thus, this study tries to identify the prevalence of postnatal care (PNC) service utilization and associated factors in four different regions of Ethiopia.Methods: community based cross-sectional study design was employed in Addis Ababa, Ambo, Bahir-Dar and Mizan-Aman from June to September 2016. And 664 women who delivered in the past one year before the data collection period were included in the study. The data was collected using structured questionnaire. The questionnaire was pre-tested in 5% of the study population. The data was double entered to Epi Data 3.1 and exported to SPSS version 20 for analysis. Binary and multiple logistic regressions used to identify associated factors with the outcome variable. Texts, tables and graphs were used for descriptive statics. Result: A total of 647 study participants were interviewed making a response rate of 97.4 %. The prevalence of PNC service utilization was found to be 81.6%. Factors associated with PNC service utilization were utilizing antenatal care (ANC) service of their last pregnancy [AOR=6.19, 95% CI (2.85-14.85)], history of institutional delivery [AOR=2.87, 95% (1.15-7.15)] and knowledge about the importance of PNC service [AOR=2.11, 95% CI (1.16-3.87)]. Reasons for not utilizing the service were lack of knowledge and lack of partner support are mentioned by majority of the women who didn’t utilize the service.Conclusion and recommendation: The overall prevalence of PNC service utilization in this study was relatively high. Increasing accessibility and services like ANC and institutional delivery coverage and attended health education on importance of PNC service utilization was very important factor to demonstrate more likely hood of PNC service utilization. Therefore, policy maker would be better consider this factors during training and postnatal program developments. Keywords: postnatal care service utilization, associated factor