Birth preparedness and complication readiness among adolescent pregnant mothers attending antenatal care at Kawempe National Refferal Hospital

Abstract

Introduction: Unexpected, and often life-threatening, events might occur at any stage of pregnancy, during the antepartum, intrapartum, and postpartum periods. Maternal death is a global issue of great concern. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported approximately 99% of them occur in developing regions, with Sub-Saharan Africa (66%) and Southern Asia (22%) accounting for 88% of the global burden of maternal death. Globally 40% or more of pregnant women may experience acute obstetric problems. BPCR is the key component of globally accepted to make prompt decisions to seek care from skilled birth attendant, resulting in reduced maternal and neonatal mortality rates. Objective: To assess the knowledge, attitudes, and practice of Birth preparedness and complication readiness among adolescent pregnant mothers attending antenatal care at Kawempe National Referral Hospital. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study design employing the use of quantitative and qualitative methods was. 286 adolescent pregnant mothers were being interviewed using a semi structured questionnaire contained both closed and open-ended questions and 7 pregnant mothers were interviewed using in-depth interviews. To assess the level of knowledge, attitudes and practices each correct answer given was awarded a mark and total calculated before converted to percentages. The maximum points for the knowledge, attitude and practices were 17, 6 and 7 respectively. Knowledge and practice were categorized into good and poor using a minimum cut off of 50% for a participant to be categorized into “Good” while the minimum cut off for Good attitudes was 80% as directed by the Bloom’s cut off of KAP studies (Yimer et al., 2014). The in-depth interviews audio recordings were transcribed without altering the meaning of the information. The transcripts were read and Codes were sorted into categories based on their linkages, which were then grouped together into meaningful overarching themes. Results: Generally, the level of knowledge among our adolescent pregnant mothers was poor. Only 11(3.9%) had good knowledge. However, attitude towards preparedness and complication readiness were good. More than half, 166 (58%) had good attitude and the practices were generally poor and less than half of participants, 123(43%) demonstrated good practice. and participants whose monthly income were exceeding Uganda shillings 250,000 had better BPACR practices (aOR: 3.8, 95%CI: 1.2-11.4, p=0.019). Conclusion: Knowledge and practices of BPACR is low amidst high prevalence of adolescent pregnancy. However, adolescents have good attitude towards BPACR. High-income status, being married and gestation age strongly influence practice of BPACR among adolescent pregnant mothers. Regardless of the high-risk nature of adolescent pregnancy, only a small proportion of the victims know the danger signs and therefore may not seek timely health care service they need.