Factors Affecting Women’s Utilization of Prenatal Care Services in Gumuz Community

Underutilization of prenatal care services is one of the major hindrances which contribute for poor maternal health situations in Ethiopia. Studies with detailed investigation of factors influencing the prenatal care services especially in those remotely located communities in the country are limited. Therefore, the very purpose of this study was to explore factors affecting women in utilizing antenatal care services in Gumuz community. Moreover, making statistical measures on some identified variables to support the qualitative findings was another purpose. To attain these objectives, the study used Sequential Exploratory Mixed Method design. In-depth interview, focus group discussion, key informant interview and Survey questionnaires were used to gather data, thematic analysis was used for the qualitative data and descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analysis was used for the quantitative data. The findings showed that lack of knowledge about the services and negative attitude towards prenatal care services were identified as factors affecting women’s utilization of prenatal care services. Besides, women’s commitment to traditional ways of life, use of Gafias (local Magicians) treatments, using the local food taboo as a treatment and religious influences were identified as socio-cultural factors affecting women in using modern health care services. The results of the bivariate and multivariate analysis supported that knowledge and attitude have associations and significant effect on the service utilization. The study concludes that lack of knowledge, negative attitude, women’s commitments to traditional ways of life, Gafias treatments, local food taboo, religious influences, are the major factors affecting Gumuz women in using modern health care services. The finding of this study has important implications for further research, practice and policy and they are indicated in the paper.