Effective coverage and associated factors of antenatal care service among women who attended antenatal care at West Gojjam Zone Public Hospitals, Northwest Ethiopia

Background: Effective coverage reflects the performance of a health system by integrating need, service utilization, and quality of care into a single measure. In many developing countries, inadequate effective coverage of antenatal care services along with poor quality maternal health services and low levels of awareness about healthcare has contributed to maternal mortality ratios that are 14 times higher than those in developed countries. Despite this significant disparity, there is limited evidence available regarding the effective coverage of antenatal care in Ethiopia. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the effective coverage of antenatal care and associated factors among women who attended antenatal care at West Gojjam Zone Public Hospitals, northwest Ethiopia. Methods: A facility-based retrospective cross-sectional study design was carried out in West Gojjam public hospitals from June 30 to July 30, 2023. Study participants were selected using a multi-stage simple random sampling technique using patient identification number as a sampling frame. Data were gathered from hospital health information data systems and client charts, entered into Epi data version 4.6, and then exported to SPSS statistical package version 25 for further analysis. Both bi-variable logistic regression and multi-variable logistic regression analyses were carried out. Variables with p-value