Unwanted Pregnancy and Associated Factors among Pregnant Married Women in Hosanna Town, Southern Ethiopia

Of an estimated 210 million pregnancies that occur in the world each year, 38% are unplanned, out of which 22% end in abortion. In Ethiopia, the estimates of unintended pregnancy indicate that it is one of the major reproductive health problems with all its adverse outcomes. Women risk their lives in by seeking illegal abortions following unintended pregnancies. Thus, this study aims to determine the prevalence of unintended pregnancy and associated factors among pregnant married women residing in Hossana, Southern Ethiopia. A community-based cross-sectional study involving both qualitative and quantitative data collection methods was carried out in Hossana from April 02 to 15, 2011. 385 pregnant married women randomly selected from the census were included for the quantitative data and took in-depth interviews for the qualitative. Descriptive, binary and multiple logistic regression analyses were performed using SPSS version 16. Out of the total pregnancies, 131 (34%) were unintended and 254 (66%) were reported to be intended. A history of previous unintended pregnancy, the husband not wanting to limit family size, a desire for at least two children, the number of pregnancy 3–4 and parity of 5 and above were factors significantly associated with unintended pregnancy. With over one third of pregnancies unintended, having a previous unintended pregnancy, the number of previous pregnancies, and husbands’ disagreement over family size, and the desired number of children are factors that reproductive health programs should aim to focus on to reduce unintended pregnancy. Citation: Hamdela B, G/mariam A, Tilahun T (2012) Unwanted Pregnancy and Associated Factors among Pregnant Married Women in Hosanna Town, Southern Ethiopia. PLoS ONE 7(6): e39074. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0039074 Editor: Hamid Reza Baradaran, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran (Islamic Republic Of) Received February 7, 2012; Accepted May 17, 2012; Published June 22, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Hamdela et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: Jimma University, Ethiopia, funded the research and it is open for the researchers to publish the manuscript. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: [email protected] . These authors contributed equally to this work.