Socioeconomic factors associated with choice of delivery place among mothers: a population-based cross-sectional study in Guinea-Bissau

BACKGROUND: Maternal death outcome remains high in Guinea-Bissau. Delivery-related complications and maternal mortality could be prevented by increasing women’s access to skilled pregnancy care. Socioeconomic status (SES) is often associated with low health service utilisation in low/middle-income countries. In Guinea-Bissau, little is known on the relationship between SES and use of health facility for delivery. In this study, we examined the association between women’s choice of health facility delivery with their SES. METHODS: Current data from Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey conducted in Guinea-Bissau, 2014 were used in this study. The place of delivery (home or health facility) was the outcome variable of interest using 7532 women of reproductive age (15–49 years). Respondents’ characteristics were described by summary statistics, while multivariable logistic regression model was used to examine the association of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics on facility-based delivery. Adjusted ORs, 95% CIs and p values were computed to identify significant determinants. RESULTS: Results show that in proportion of women delivering at home was higher than of delivery at a health facility. Overall percentage of women who delivered at health facility was 39.8%, with the rate being substantially higher among urban (67.8%) compared with their rural (30.2%) counterparts. Percentage of delivering at home was highest in Oio region (23.8%) and that of delivery at a health facility was highest in the Sector Autónomo de Bissau region (18.7%). In the multivariable analysis, women in urban areas compared those who had no education, those who had primary and secondary/higher level of education were 2.2 and 3.3 times more likely to deliver at a health facility. The odds of facility were also highest among the women from the richest households, 5.3 and 5 times among urban and rural women, respectively. CONCLUSION: Based on these findings, the study concludes that the percentage of health facility delivery is low in Guinea-Bissau, which can be promoted through scaling up women’s SES. The findings could guide healthcare policy-makers to address the issue of unskilled delivery services and increase the use of facility-based delivery particularly among the disadvantaged women.