Perceived community acceptance on traditional birth attendants assisted childbirth care and associated factors among pregnant women in Ethiopia

Community acceptance of Traditional birth attendants (TBAs) as professional birth attendant was reported as one of the bottlenecks that has been hindering facility childbirth care service use. Hence, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended that all childbirths needed to be attended by professional skilled attendants who at least possessed midwifery skill through the safe motherhood initiative. However, many births in developing countries have been being attended by Traditional birth attendants (TBAs) mainly due to pregnant women and community acceptance for TBAs as sole birth attendants. Therefore, measuring pregnant women's perceived community acceptance towards TBAs assisted childbirth care and identifying factors could be imperative. This provides evidence for policy makers, health program managers and health care practitioners in their effort to escalate skilled and facility childbirth care there by improving maternal and newborn health outcome. This study had used the cross-sectional baseline data from Performance and monitoring for action Ethiopia (PMA_Et) cohort one survey which enrolled and collected data from currently pregnant women and recently postpartum women. The baseline survey collected real time data on various sexual, reproductive, maternal and new born nationwide priority indicators using customized Open Data Kit Mobile application. These data were collected using standard pretested questionnaire prepared in three local languages (Amharic, Afan Oromo and Tigrigna) by well experienced resident enumerators. The final sample size was 2,186 women who were pregnant by the time of the survey and who provided response for the perceived community acceptance for TBAs assisted childbirth care question item. Frequencies were computed to describe the study participant's characteristics. Multinomial logistics regression statistical model building process was employed to identify associated factors of perceived community acceptance for childbirths to be attended by TBAs. Results were presented in the form percentages and odds ratio with 95% Confidence Intervals. Candidate variables were selected using p-value of 0.25. Statistical significance was declared at p-value of 0.05. The overall proportion of perceived community acceptance for TBAs assisted childbirth care was found to be 58.63% (95%CI: 56.47%, 60.76%). Attending primary education was found to increase the likelihood of pregnant women perceived community acceptance by most people in th