Effectiveness of Community-level Intervention on Women’s Knowledge about Obstetric Fistula in Bench Sheko Zone, Ethiopia

Abstract Background: Obstetric fistula is one of the most severe pregnancy-related disabilities. While the condition has disappeared in developed countries, it remains a source of concern in Ethiopia and serves as a proxy indicator of the status of Ethiopian women and the availability and access to quality maternal health services. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a community-level intervention on women’s knowledge about obstetric fistula in Bench Sheko Zone, Ethiopia 2020.Methods: Quasi-experimental design with comparison groups post-test only was employed in Semen Bench as an intervention and Guraferda Woreda as a comparison group of Bench sheko Zone from April, 1-30,2020. A multi-stage sampling technique was employed to select 284 women for intervention and 284 comparison group. Data were collected by using Kobo Collect v1.25.1. The descriptive and binary analysis was done to describe variables and select candidate variables for multivariable regression respectively. Multivariate regression analyses were performed to examine the effects of intervention by using Stata version 16.0. Result: The intervention group has a significant difference when compared with the counterpart (p<0.001) on women’s knowledge of obstetric fistula. Women who have good knowledge about obstetric fistula were 69.7% and 30.4% from the intervention and comparison group respectively (p<0.001). Knowledge about obstetric fistula was higher among respondent’s who can read & write (AOR=2.707:95% CI (1.433-5.686)), primary level of education (AOR=2.073:95%CI (1.266-3.395)), Secondary and above education (AOR=2.822:95%CI (1.338-5.952)) than women who have no formal education. Similarly, heard about obstetric complications (AOR=4.478:95% CI (2.635-7.610)), history of induced abortion (AOR=2.347:95% CI (1.203-4.576)), intervention woreda (AOR=2.707:95%CI (1.771-4.138)) attending pregnant women conference (AOR=0.06:95% CI(0.02-0.19)), age at first pregnancy greater than 20 years (AOR=1.72 95% CI (1.10-2.68)) were the factors associated with knowledge of obstetric fistula.Conclusion: Measurable differences between intervention and comparison woreda in terms of women's knowledge of obstetric fistula was observed. Therefore, Community based intervention can increase women's knowledge and encourage the use of essential obstetric services.