Prevalence and Associated Factors with Maternal Near-Miss among Pregnant Women at Hawassa University Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, Sidama Region, Ethiopia

Background: Maternal near miss refers to a very ill pregnant or delivered woman who nearly died but survived a complication during pregnancy, childbirth, or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy. It is an important public health problem in developing country including Ethiopia. Objective: To assess the prevalence and associated factors with maternal near-miss among pregnant women at Hawassa university’s comprehensive specialized hospital, 2020. Method: Health facility-based cross-sectional study was done from May to June 2020. Structured questionnaires were used to collect the data from 316 study participants. The data were entered with Epi data version 4.4 and exported to Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25.0 for analysis. Binary logistic regression was done. Statistical significance was declared at P-values < 0.05 with a 95% CI. Result: The finding of this study revealed that the prevalence of maternal near-miss was 16.1% with 95% CI (12.3, 20.3). Almost half of the underlying cause of maternal near-miss was a hypertensive disorder of pregnancy and nearly 75% of maternal near-miss occurred before arrival to a health facility. Variables such as rural residence [AOR: 4.2, 95% CI (1.3, 13.9)], referred women [AOR: 5.5, 95% CI (1.8, 17.4)], previous history of stillbirth [AOR: 10.2, 95% CI (1.4, 71.8)] and time takes to reach hospital [AOR: 4.8, 95% CI (1.34, 16.9)] were found to be associated factors with maternal near-miss. Conclusion: In this study,the prevalence of maternal nearmiss was relatively high. Being a rural residence, referred women, the time takes to reach the hospital, and the previous stillbirth were the factors independently associated with the occurrence of maternal near-miss. The presence of maternal near-miss in women is an independent risk factor for adverse perinatal outcomes. Strengthening the available health system in rural parts of the country with a focus on maternity service is also a crucial step to avert serious maternal complications. Hence, interventions rendered at the improvement in maternal health can lead to an improvement in perinatal outcomes.