Male involvement in birth preparedness and complication readiness in Ethiopia: A Systematic review and Meta-analysis

Background: Male involvement during pregnancy, labor and post-partum care has been shown to improve positive maternal and newborn outcomes. Nevertheless, it continues to be low, especially in low income countries. One of the reasons is the lack of birth preparedness and complication readiness, which is recognized as the most cost-effective and achievable components of safe motherhood programs around the world. Thus, this systematic review and meta-analysis study tried to determine the pooled prevalence of male involvement in birth preparedness and complication readiness (BP/CR) and its associated factors in Ethiopia. Methods: Searching of the primary articles was completed by PubMed/MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHAL, and Google Scholar, HINARI portal which includes the SCOPUS, African Index Medicus, and African Journals Online Database . The data was extracted by using a standard data extraction checklist that developed according to Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI).For assessing heterogeneity across the studies I 2 statistics was used. The Funnel plot asymmetry and Egger ’ s tests were used to check the presence of publication bias. A random effect model was used to estimate the pooled proportion of male involvement. Odds Ratio (OR) with the 95% confidence interval was also used to determine the association of identified factors with the outcome variable. Result: From a total of 614, primary studies 8 were eligible for inclusion in the final systematic Review and meta-analysis. The pooled estimate of male involvement in birth preparedness and complication readiness was found to be 40.17% [95%CI (24.01-56.33). Conclusion: The pooled prevalence of male involvement in birth preparedness and complication readiness was relatively low. Thus, Minister of Health with its stake holders better to give emphasis on community awareness programs so as to increase male involvement for birth preparedness and complication readiness.