Spatial Distribution and Associated Factors of Institutional Delivery among Reproductive-Age Women in Ethiopia: The Case of Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey.

Background: Maternal mortality is unacceptably high. About 295,000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth in 2017. The vast majority of these deaths (94%) occurred in low-resource settings, and most could have been prevented.

Methods: This research is based on a cross-sectional study using 2016 EDHS data. The analysis included 7,590 women who had given birth in the five years prior to the survey. Clusters with high and low hot spots with institutional delivery were found using SatScan spatial statistical analysis. A multilevel multivariable mixed-effect logistic regression was utilized to discover characteristics associated with institutional delivery.

Result: In this study, 33.25% of women who gave birth in the last 5 years preceding the survey delivered their babies at health institutions. The finding also indicated that the spatial distribution of institutional delivery was nonrandom in the country. Variables achieving statically significant association with utilization of institutional delivery were as follows: at the individual level, richness (AOR = 2.18, 95%CI: 1.39-3.41), higher education (AOR = 3.89, 95%CI: 1.51-10.01), a number of antenatal care visits of four and above (AOR = 6.57, 95%CI: 4.83-8.94), and parity of more than two children (AOR = 0.48, 95%CI: 0.34-0.68); at the community level, higher education (AOR = 1.70, 95%CI: 1.22-2.36) and urban residence (AOR = 5.30, 95%CI: 3.10-9.06) were variables that had achieved statically significant association for utilization of institutional delivery.

Conclusions: This study identified a spatial cluster of institutional delivery with the Somali and Afar region having low utilization rates and Addis Ababa and Tigray regions having the highest utilization rates. The significant individual factors associated with institution delivery were woman antenatal care visits, household wealth index, maternal education, and parity, and the significant community ones were region, place of residence, and educational status. Therefore, to maximize health facility delivery in Ethiopia, the predictors of institutional delivery identified in this study should be given more attention by governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders.