Male involvement and women’s access to antenatal care (anc) at omdurman maternity hospital (omh), sudan 2016

Background: In developing countries men are the main decision makers affecting women access to maternity care. Objectives: To investigate the effect of husbands’ attendance on women access to antenatal care (ANC) at Omdurman maternity hospital (OMH) 2016 Methodology: A descriptive, cross sectional, hospital based study conducted at OMH. A ten percent of women attending ANC at OMH during the study period were included after an informed consent. Ethical clearance was obtained from ethical review committee (ERC) at OMH. Data was collected by trained data collectors using structured format, coded, edited, rechecked and analyzed by trained person using SPSS version 21.0. Results: A total of 2822 women participated in the study. Male attendance in ANC was 1860 (66.0%), 989 (35.1%) of them always accompany their wives, 873 (30.9%) accompany their wives only in private clinics and 960 (34.0%) did not accompany their wives at all. Women accompanied by their husbands; 1430 (76.8%) were urban, while 432 (23.2%) were rural. Those not accompanied by their husbands; 206 (21.5%) of them were urban and 754 (78.5%) were rural (PV = 0.001). Both women and husbands were well educated, only 4.0%-4.2% were illiterate. Husbands’ education has shown a significant difference in male attendance at ANC (PV = 0.0001). Women who were accompanied by their husbands; 1308 (70.2%) of them had regular ANC (four visits or more), while those not accompanied by husbands; only 145 (15.1%) had regular ANC, (PV = 0.001). Barriers affecting men from accompanying their wives for ANC were: work commitment 1259 (68.7%), presence of male affecting other women’s privacy 346 (18.9%) or they consider it not important to accompany women for ANC 228 (12.4%). Most of women 2670 (94.6%) would like to be accompanied by their husbands. However, 1732 (61.4%) were satisfied with their husbands participation in ANC. Conclusion: Women accompanied by their husbands had more regular ANC visits. Male participation in ANC was influenced by urbanization, husband education, and is affected by work commitment and other socio- cultural behaviors.