Male Partner Attendance in Antenatal Care and Associated Factors in Asmara, Eritrea: A Cross-Sectional Study

Introduction: Male attendance during antenatal care is promoted to be an important intervention to increase positive maternal health outcomes. This is because the attendance of men in antenatal care can play a vital role in ensuring safe pregnancy and skilled delivery. Despite efforts to stimulate male attendance during antenatal care, not many men accompany their wife’s to skilled ANC. Objective: The aim of this study was to assess male partner attendance to skilled antenatal care and associated factors in Asmara ,Eritrea. Method: Community based cross-sectional study was conducted on male partners whose women gave birth within 48 months prior to the survey. Multi stage cluster sampling method was used to get the total sample size of 402 participants. A pre-tested and structured questionnaire was used to collect data. Data entry and analysis was done through SPSS version 22.0 . Result: 52% of male partners attended at least one to antenatal care visit. Respondents who knew about pregnancy danger sign(COR:2.029;99%CI;(1.346-3.058)),who attended ANC education(AOR:2.650;99%CI;(1.643-4.272) ),those who discussed about ANC with their spouse (AOR:2.246;99%CI;(1.205-4.185) )were positively associated with male attendance to antenatal care. The most common reasons for not attending ANC were being preoccupied with other jobs and neglecting its importance. Conclusion: nearly half of the men did not attend to antenatal care. In order to improve male attendance to antenatal care, health education aimed at increasing men awareness about antenatal care services should be instituted by government bodies.