Male Partner Involvement in Antenatal Care at Kangundo Level 4 Hospital in Machakos County, Kenya

Abstract

Male partner involvement is the process of ensuring that spouses avail themselves and participate in every step together with their wives during antenatal care services. The need for male partner involvement was introduced in 1994 at the International Conference on Population and Development on reproductive health policies held in Cairo. The National Guidelines for Quality Obstetrics and Perinatal Care, clearly indicates that male involvement in maternal and neonatal health care has positive outcomes as it helps in addressing the first and second delays. Despite the emphasis, there are no documented studies on male partner involvement in antenatal care at Kangundo level 4 hospital in Machakos County. The purpose of the study was to assess the proportion and determinants of male partner involvement in antenatal care at Kangundo Level 4 Hospital. Analytical cross-sectional design was used in this study. A total of 132 pregnant women participated by filling in questionnaires while three focused group discussions were conducted among the pregnant women who did not fill the questionnaire and three nurses were interviewed as key informants. Quantitative data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) for windows version 20.0. Descriptive data were used to analyze objective one which was computed with frequencies and percentages. A bivariate regression model was used to determine factors associated with male partner involvement. Results were then presented in form of tables and figures. Adjusted multivariate regression was then done for the factors associated with male partner involvement to control for confounding factors. Qualitative data was analyzed by thematic analysis to identify major themes and develop a broad coding scheme based on the research objectives using N-Vivo software. The study findings revealed that only 34.1% of the male partners were involved in antenatal care. Similarly, respondents in the qualitative data agreed that most men were not involved in the antenatal care. Most of the respondents (62.1%) reported that men were busy at work, 10.3% reported pregnancy and antenatal care was perceived as roles for women and 9.2% were not living together with their male partners. There was a statistically significant association between male partner involvement and living together with partner (P=<0.0001, AOR=3.1), male partner helping in household chores (P=0.012, AOR=2.5), those who spent 40 mins to 1hour (P=0.021, AOR=3.0) and 2 hours to reach the health facility (P=0.015, AOR=3.8). The study concluded that there was low male partner involvement in antenatal care at Kangundo level 4 hospital. Living together with partner and male partner helping in household chores were independent predictors of male partner involvement in antenatal care. Therefore, the researcher recommended the hospital management to support more outreach services especially in churches and during chief Baraza’s so as to provide more information to the men at the community level.