Alcohol consumption and its determinants among pregnant women in Gozamin district, Amhara, Ethiopia, 2020

OBJECTIVE: Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can cause many major severe illnesses to both mothers and their offspring. Despite this, many pregnant women consume both homemade and manufactured alcoholic beverages. We conducted this study to assess the prevalence and determinants of alcohol consumption among pregnant women in Gozamin district, Amhara, Ethiopia, in 2020. METHODS: Community-based cross-sectional study was employed from 1 to 30 November, 2020. The participants were recruited using a stratified multi-stage sampling technique. A structured and pretested interviewer-administered questionnaire was utilized for data collection. The collected data were entered into Epi-data Version 3.1 and exported to SPSS Version 25 for further analysis. The model fitness was checked by Hosmer and Lemeshow’s goodness of fit test. Then, logistic regression models were considered to determine the associations of independent variables with the outcome variable. Variables with p < 0.25 in bivariable logistic regression were considered for multivariable logistic regression. Finally, variables with p < 0.05 in multivariable logistic regression were considered as determinants of alcohol consumption. RESULT: A total of 555 pregnant women participated in this study, making the response rate of 97.4%. The prevalence of alcohol consumption among the participants was 45.6% (95% confidence interval = 41.4–49.2). The determinants of alcohol consumption among the participants were highest wealth index (adjusted odds ratio = 3.21; 95% CI = 1.68–6.14), pre-pregnancy alcohol consumption (adjusted odds ratio = 3.67; 95% confidence interval = 2.36–5.71), poor social support (adjusted odds ratio = 3.08; 95% confidence interval = 1.60–5.94), and unplanned pregnancy (adjusted odds ratio = 1.66; 95% confidence interval = 1.04–2.66). CONCLUSION: In this study, the prevalence of alcohol consumption was high among the pregnant women. Our findings suggest introduction of policies and interventions that can help reduce alcohol consumption during pregnancy. The health education priority should be creation of awareness about the negative health impacts of alcohol on the health of pregnant mothers and their offspring.