The Involvement Of Men In Maternity Care In Dodoma Region, Tanzania

ABSTRACT

Men‘s involvement in maternity care has been recognized as one of the key strategies

in improving maternal health and accelerating reduction of maternal mortality. Men

impact women‘s reproductive health through their role as partners, fathers and close

family providers in terms of financial power and decision control they have. Factors

that determine men‘s involvement in maternity care have been documented in other

parts of the globe, but very little research has been conducted in Tanzania to identify

the factors that determine men‘s involvement in maternity care. This study was

conducted in Dodoma Region in central Tanzania to explore the factors that

determine the involvement of men in maternity care. The study also looked at the

level of men‘s involvement in maternity care and the initiatives carried out by the

community to promote their involvement. A cross-sectional survey using

interviewer-administered structured questionnaire was conducted among randomly

selected 966 men aged 18 years and above. The survey was complemented by 32

focus group discussions (16 women‘s FGDs and 16 men‘s FGDs) and 34 in-depth

interviews (20 IDIs with community leaders and 14 IDIs with health care providers).

The involvement of men in maternity care was measured using a combined measure

of four (4) key points and then a factor analysis was used to obtain an overall men‘s

involvement index. Analyses were carried out using SPSS version 21.0 and NVivo 8

computer software packages. Pearson Chi-Square was used to test association

between the background characteristics of the respondents and the level of men‘s

involvement in maternity care. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was carried

out to determine the predictors for men‘s involvement in maternity care. Thematic

Content Analysis of the focus-group discussions and in-depth interviews was also

conducted. Overall, with regard to the level of men‘s involvement in maternity care

about 20.3% of men had high level of involvement, 52.6% had moderate level of

involvement and 27.1% had low level of involvement. With regard to the three

periods of maternity care, antenatal and postnatal periods had over half the

proportion of high men‘s involvement while the natal period had less than a quarter

proportion of high men‘s involvement. Results of bivariate analysis showed a

significant association with ethnicity (χ2=26.808, p