Unintended Pregnancy and Associated Factors among Pregnant Women in Rural Ethiopia

Background: Unintended pregnancy is a worldwide problem that affects the health of women, families and relatives. This study was aimed to identify the major factors associated with unintended pregnancy among women in rural Ethiopia.

Methods: We used 2016 Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) data on 853 rural pregnant women aged 15–49. Analyses of the data were done using SPSS 25 version 25. Chi-square test was used to filter candidate independent variables to be included in a multivariable logistic regression. And the multivariable logistic regression model was employed to estimate the relative association of factors associated with unintended pregnancy. The significance of the factors was considered based on p-value of less than 0.05.

Results: The prevalence of unintended pregnancy in study area was 20.9% (95% CI: 18.2, 23.8). The unintended pregnancy was associated with region Afar (AOR: 0.308, 95% CI: 0.101, 0.943) and Somalia (AOR: 0.064, 95% CI: 0.012, 0.331), women aged 35 or older (AOR: 2.016, 95% CI: 1.014, 4.009), women who had primary education (AOR: 0.284, 95% CI: 0.190, 0.425) and secondary/higher education (AOR: 0.201, 95% CI: 0.123, 0.329), Women who knew about contraceptives (AOR: 0.481, 95% CI: 0.379, 0.610), and parity 1 or 2 (AOR: 0.782, 95% CI: 0.750, 0.815).

Conclusion: About one-fifth of the pregnancies were unintended. Region, age, educational level, knowledge about contraceptive and parity were significantly associated factors of unintended pregnancy. Providing health education to women needs to be encouraged to minimize the magnitude of unintended pregnancy.