Assessment of partograph utilization and associated factors among obstetric care givers at public health institutions in central zone, Tigray, Ethiopia

OBJECTIVES: Partograph is one of the best effective obstetric tools used to monitoring labor and prevent prolonged or obstructed labor which accounts for about 22% of maternal deaths in Ethiopia. This study was aimed to assess partograph utilization and associated factors among obstetric care givers. Facility based cross sectional study was used in the randomly selected health facilities. Total 220 obstetric care givers were selected using simple random sampling technique. Data were entered and analyzed using SPSS version 22.0. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to identify the associations of each explanatory variable with the outcome variable. Finally, odds ratio with its 95% confidence interval and p-value of 0.05 was used to identify significant variables. RESULT: Out of 198 obstetric care providers, 73.3% used partograph to monitor progress of labor. Those who were diploma holders (AOR = 3.8, CI = 2.2–6.2), receiving basic emergency obstetrics and new born care training (AOR = 5.6, CI 1.1–28.5), age between 20 and 29 years-old (AOR = 0.1, CI = 0.01–0.50), and male health care providers (AOR = 0.37, CI = 0.44–0.95) were factors significantly associated with partograph utilization. Partograph utilization in this study was below the WHO recommendation. Especial emphasizes and interventions should be given to increase partograph utilization. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s13104-018-3814-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.