Doctoral Theses

Permanent URI for this collection

http://192.168.18.118:4000/handle/20.500.12661/369

Browse

Browsing Doctoral Theses by Author "Gibore, Nyasiro S"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The involvement of men in maternity care in Dodoma region, Tanzania
    (The University of Dodoma, 2015) Gibore, Nyasiro S
    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<0.001), number of children (χ2=11.360, p<0.05), occupation (χ2=9.558, p<0.01), religion ((χ2=14.220, p<0.001), place of residence (χ2=8.290, p<0.05), distance to the health care unit (χ2=24.708, p<0.001), information regarding the involvement of men in maternal health care services (χ2=28.048, p<0.001) and spousal communication (χ2=69.621, p<0.001). Results of multinomial logistic regression analysis showed that ethnicity, number of children, place of residence, time spent to receive maternal health care service, distance to the health care facility, information regarding the involvement of men in maternal health care services and spousal communication were the predictors of men‘s involvement in maternity care. Qualitative study revealed that traditional gender role norms, beliefs and health care system issues were the barriers for men‘s involvement in maternity care. The study also found that at the community level, very few initiatives were taking place to encourage men‘s involvement in maternity care in terms of economic, social and cultural measures. This study concludes that the level of men‘s involvement in maternity care was moderate. Therefore, there is a need to increase men‘s involvement through creating male-friendly health facilities, increasing community awareness and sensitization on men‘s involvement in maternity care in order to remove the cultural barriers for men‘s involvement.