Factors associated with utilization of institutional delivery care and postnatal care services in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is one of the sub-Saharan African countries with high maternal mortality rate due to complication of delivery. Institutional delivery care and postnatal care are key health services that can reduce maternal mortality. The main objective of this study was to identify factors affecting utilization of institutional delivery and postnatal care services. The data for this study were obtained from the 2014 EDHS which is a national representative of women aged 15-49 years. The total number of women included in the study was 3710. Descriptive analysis and binary logistic regression model were used to analyze the data. The descriptive results showed that about 26.2 and 23.6% of women used institutional delivery and postnatal care services, respectively. Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the effect of each predicator variable on the use of institutional delivery and postnatal care among women. Accordingly, educational level, place of residence, sex of household head, wealth index, region and ANC visits were found to be significant determinants of utilizing both institutional delivery and postnatal care at 5% level of significance. Number of living children was also found to be a significant predictor of institutional delivery use. Women who reside in rural areas were less likely to use maternity health care services than those who live in urban areas. Education and wealth index were found to be statistically significant in the use of IDC and PNC. Thus, great attention should be given to women who are living in rural areas, in low wealth index and in illiterate group. Key words: Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS), Ethiopia, Institutional Delivery Care (IDC), postnatal care (PNC), logistic regression model.