Knowledge of Safe Abortion and Associated Factors among Female Students in Debre Markos University, Amhara Regional State, Northwest Ethiopia, 2016: A Cross Sectional Study

Background: Unsafe abortion was recognized problem worldwide which accounts 7.9% and 10% of all maternal mortality in the world and Ethiopia respectively. Nearly all unsafe abortions (98%) occur in developing countries. Even though the abortion penal code of Ethiopia was amended in 2005, to permit safe abortion under a set of some criteria, there is high number of unsafe abortion rate nationally (28/1000) and among University students (65/1000), from which only 50% was safe abortion which may be due to the possibility of low knowledge on liberalized safe abortion in our country. Objective: To assess knowledge of safe abortion and associated factors among female students in Debre Markos University, Amhara Regional State, Northwest Ethiopia, April, 2016. Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted on 483 undergraduate regular female students from April 4-18, 2016 in Debre Markos University. Simple random sampling was used. Self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Data was entered in to Epi Info version 7 and analyzed by SPSS version 20. Odds ratio with 95% confidence interval was used to identify associated factors and multivariable logistic regression to adjust the effects of possible cofounders. Results: All questionnaires (507) were filled, but 24 questionnaires were incomplete and have been rejected from the data analysis, which gives response rate of 95.3%. 199 (41.2%) of the respondents were knowledgeable about liberalized safe abortion. By multivariable logistic regression analysis, marital status [AOR = 2.44, 95% of CI:(1.35,4.42)], family residence [AOR = 1.56, 95% of CI:(1.03, 2.39)], maternal educational level [AOR = 2.68, 95% of CI:(1.08, 6.61)] and ever had pregnant before [AOR = 10.68, 95% of CI:(4.52, 25.22)] were the factors significantly associated with knowledge of female students to liberalized safe abortion. Conclusions and recommendation: High proportions of students were not knowledgeable about safe abortion. Awareness creation toward safe abortion is very important in university students.