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Factors associated with reporting good maternal health-related knowledge among rural mothers of Yemen

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2021

Dalia Hyzam Open the ORCID record for Dalia Hyzam [Opens in a new window] ,
Mingyang Zou ,
Michael Boah Open the ORCID record for Michael Boah [Opens in a new window] ,
Huda Basaleem ,
Xiaoli Liu  and
Li-Jie Wu Open the ORCID record for Li-Jie Wu [Opens in a new window]
Dalia Hyzam
Affiliation:
Department of Children’s and Adolescent Health, and Maternal Health Care, Public Health College, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China
Mingyang Zou
Affiliation:
Department of Children’s and Adolescent Health, and Maternal Health Care, Public Health College, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China
Michael Boah
Affiliation:
Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Disease Control, School of Public, University for Development Studies, Tamale, Ghana
Huda Basaleem
Affiliation:
Community Medicine and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Aden, Yemen
Xiaoli Liu
Affiliation:
Harbin Maternity Hospital, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China
Li-Jie Wu*
Affiliation:
Department of Children’s and Adolescent Health, and Maternal Health Care, Public Health College, Harbin Medical University, Harbin, China
*
*Corresponding author. Email: wulijiehyd@126.com
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Abstract

Increasing women’s knowledge about maternal health is an important step towards empowering them and making them aware of their rights and health status, allowing them to seek appropriate health care. In Yemen, the ongoing conflict has hampered the delivery of health information to women in public health facilities. This study examined rural women’s knowledge of, and attitude towards, maternal and child health in Yemen and identified the factors associated with good maternal health knowledge. The study was conducted between August and November 2018. A sample of 400 women aged 15–49 years who had delivered in the 6 months prior to the survey were systematically selected from selected public health facilities in Abyan and Lahj. Women were interviewed using a structured questionnaire to gather data on their demographic and economic characteristics, obstetric history and responses to health knowledge and attitude questions. Women’s knowledge level was assessed as poor or good using the mean score as a cut-off. Chi-squared test and multiple logistic regression analysis were used to identify statistically significant factors associated with good maternal health knowledge. The percentage of women who had good knowledge was 44.8% (95% CI: 39.8–49.8). Women’s attitude towards maternal health was negative in the areas of early ANC attendance, managing dietary regime and weight during pregnancy, facility delivery, PNC visits, cord care and mother and child health management. Women with primary education, whose husbands had received no formal education, who had their first ANC visit from the second trimester of pregnancy and who had fewer than four ANC visits were more likely to have poor health knowledge. Conversely, those with higher household income and only one child were more likely to have good maternal health knowledge. Overall, women’s knowledge on maternal and child health care in rural areas of Yemen was low. Strategies are needed to increase rural women’s knowledge on maternal and child health in this conflict-affected setting.

Keywords

Maternal health knowledgePredictorsYemen
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Biosocial Science , Volume 55 , Issue 1 , January 2023 , pp. 150 - 168
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

a

Authors contributed equally to this work.

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