Determinants of recommended antenatal care visits among pregnant women in Ethiopia: a generalized linear mixed-effects modeling

BACKGROUND: Although antenatal care has the potential role to reduce maternal and child morbidity and mortality, utilization of a recommended number of antenatal care visits is still low in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the determinants of recommended antenatal care visits in Ethiopia. METHOD: Data from the 2019 mini-Ethiopian demographic and health survey (MEDHS) was used for this study. A total of 3916 women who gave birth 5 years preceding the MEDHS were included. A generalized linear mixed-effects (mixed-effects logistic regression) model was used to identify the determinants of recommended antenatal care service utilization. Finally, the adjusted odds ratio with a 95% confidence interval and random effects were reported. RESULTS: In the generalized linear mixed-effects model, women with primary education (AOR = 1.55, 95%CI 1.22–2.01), secondary and above education (AOR = 5.12, 95%CI 2.80–8.16), women from the middle (AOR = 1.25, 95%CI 1.01–1.71) and rich wealth index (AOR = 1.54, 95%CI 1.12–2.25), women who were exposed to media (AOR = 1.23,95%CI 1.01–1.57) and who use contraception (AOR = 1.45 95%CI 1.25–2.03), had higher odds of recommended antenatal care service utilization. CONCLUSION: In this study, factors like maternal educational status, media exposure, wealth index and history of contraceptive utilization were significantly associated with recommended ANC visits in Ethiopia. Therefore, encouraging women for contraceptive service utilization, consulting women to be exposed to media and improving women’s wealth status will help to have recommended number of ANC visits by pregnant women in Ethiopia.