Barriers and Facilitators to Accessing Health Care Services among Married Women in Ethiopia: a Multi-level Analysis of the Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey

Authors

  • Betregiorgis Zegeye, MPH, MA HaSET Maternal and Child Health Research Program, Shewarobit Field Office, Shewarobit, Ethiopia https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4550-3261
  • Nicholas Kofi Adjei, DrPH, MSc Department of Public Health and Policy, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0644-1881
  • Bright Opoku Ahinkorah, MPhil School of Public Health, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, Australia
  • Edward Kwabena Ameyaw, MPhil School of Public Health, Faculty of Health, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, Australia
  • Eugene Budu Department of Population and Health, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
  • Abdul-Aziz Seidu, MPhil Department of Population and Health, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana
  • Dina Idriss-Wheeler, MSc, MHA Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
  • Sanni Yaya, PhD, MSc Interdisciplinary School of Health Sciences, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; School of International Development and Global Studies, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; The George Institute for Global Health, Imperial College London, London, UK

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21106/ijtmrph.380

Keywords:

Health Care Access, Factors , Multilevel , Ethiopia , DHS , Global Health , Individual- and Community-Levels , Barriers, Facilitators

Abstract

Background and Objective: Access to health care services is a major challenge to women and children in many developing countries such as Ethiopia. In this study, we investigated the individual- and community-level factors associated with barriers to accessing health care services among married women in Ethiopia.

Methods: Data from the 2016 Ethiopia demographic and health survey on 9,824 married women of reproductive age (15-49 years) were analyzed. Multilevel logistic regression models were used to assess individual- and community-level factors associated with barriers to access health care services. Regression analysis results revealed adjusted odds ratios at 95% confidence intervals.

Results: Over two-thirds (71.8%) of married women in Ethiopia reported barriers to accessing health care services. Some of the individual-level factors that were associated with lower odds of reporting barriers to access health care services include: having secondary education (aOR=0.49, 95% CI: 0.32-0.77), being in the richest quintile (aOR=0.34, 95% CI: 0.22-0.54), and indicating wife-beating as unjustified (aOR=0.66, 95% CI:0.55-0.81). Among the community-level factors, high community-level literacy (aOR=0.56, 95% CI: 0.34-0.92) and moderate community socioeconomic status (aOR=0.62, 95% CI: 0.45-0.85) were significantly associated with lower odds of reporting barriers to access health care services.

Conclusion and Implications for Translation: The findings revealed high barriers to access health care services, and both individual- and community-level factors were significant contributing predictors. Therefore, it is important to consider multidimensional strategies and interventions to facilitate access to health care services in Ethiopia.

 

Copyright © Zegeye et al. Published by Global Health and Education Projects, Inc. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0.

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How to Cite

Zegeye, B., Adjei, N. K. ., Ahinkorah, B. O. ., Ameyaw, E. K. ., Budu, E., Seidu, A.-A. ., Idriss-Wheeler, D., & Yaya, S. (2021). Barriers and Facilitators to Accessing Health Care Services among Married Women in Ethiopia: a Multi-level Analysis of the Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey. International Journal of Translational Medical Research and Public Health, 5(2), 183–196. https://doi.org/10.21106/ijtmrph.380

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 2 (2021)

Section

Original Article

License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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