Socio-Demographic And Economic Factors Associated With Anc Attendance Among Women Of Reproductive Age

Purpose: The research was done to determine the socio-demographic and economic factors associated with ANC attendance among women of reproductive age. Methods: The study used descriptive cross-sectional community based survey. The study area is Guriel district in Galmudug state Somalia. The target group of the study were women of reproductive age from 15-49 in Guriel district. Guriel has population estimated around 150, 000,(UNDPA). Gurriel district was purposively selected for the study. The district had 4 villages namely Hawlwadaag, Dalsan, Tawakal and Wadajir. Hawlwadaag and Dalsan were randomly selected for the study though folded pieces of paper. Hawlwadaag had a total of 852 Households and Dalsan had 704 Households. The respondents were selected from the households using systematic random sampling with an interval of 3. The first respondent from the household was selected using simple random sampling through folded pieces of paper. Every 3rd Household selected from the villages was interviewed until the required number of respondents was reached.Since the population was a large the sample size was determined by using Fisher's et al (2003) formula. The sample size was 384. Data from the questionnaires was cleaned, coded and entered into Microsoft excel and later exported to SPSS version 22.0. Descriptive statistics such as frequency tables, and percentage was used to summarize Quantitative variable. Inferential statistics was obtained by Chi square at 95% confidence level was used to ascertain statistically significant of the variables at p-Value <0.05, and to test null hypothesis. Results: The findings indicated that most socio-demographic factors influenced ANC attendance. In the study marital status, education level, and parity showed significant statistical association with ANC attendance. The study findings showed that most economic factors played significant role in determining ANC attendance among respondents. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The researcher recommended that the state governments and community based organizations should educate the women on income generating activities as well as offer them loans to be economically empowered.