Pregnancy Related Worry and Associated Factors among Pregnant Women Attending Ante Natal Care At Abebech Gobena MCH Hospital 2023; A Cross Sectional Study

Abstract Background Pregnancy and childbirth are major developmental periods in a woman’s life that adds many sources of concerns to women’s daily life worries. Pregnant women should be provided with relevant and useful information to cope up with this specific period of their lives. Excessive worry can affect maternal physiological and psychological state that influences the pregnancy outcomes. Access to reliable pregnancy related information from the right sources reduces pregnancy related worries. This study assessed pregnancy related worry and associated factors among pregnant women attending ante natal care. Methods A cross-sectional study using a systematic random sampling method was conducted on 422 pregnant women who came for antenatal care follow up at Abebech Gobena MCH hospital from June 1, 2023 to September 30, 2023. The socio-demographic and obstetric characteristics, health information status, health care service utilization and social factors were obtained and pregnancy related worries were measured using Cambridge Worry Scale. Descriptive statistics was used to see frequency of independent variables. Simple logistic regression analysis was computed and all independent variables with p-value less than 0.25 were entered in multivariate logistic regression. Multivariate logistic regression was fitted to identify the factors associated with pregnancy related worries. Result From total of 422 pregnant women using Cambridge worry scale, 54.7% of the respondent women had pregnancy related worries and the rest 45.3% had no worries. The odds of pregnancy related worry among pregnant women were higher in women from rural area [AOR = 2.78; 95% CI: 1.24, 6.25], who were unable to read and write [AOR = 0.30 95% CI: 0.10, 0.92], who had previous pregnancy complication [AOR = 0.39; 95% CI: 0.16, 0.96], women living in more than five km distance [AOR = 2.45; 95% CI: 1.22, 4.90], who used digital source of information [AOR = 6.98; 95% CI: 2.00, 24.40] and low social support [AOR = 0.08; 95% CI: 0.01, 0.44]. Conclusion and recommendation pregnancy related worries were prevalent in women attending ante natal care and significantly associated with women’s place of residence, educational status, previous pregnancy complication, distance from the health facility, source of trusted source of information, and social support.