Tawfiq Essa, Stanikzai Muhammad Haroon, Anwary Zabihullah, Akbari Khalid, Sayam Hadia, Wasiq Abdul Wahed, Dadras Omid
The Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney, Sydney, Australia.
Department of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Kandahar University, District # 10, 3801, Kandahar, Afghanistan.
BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2025 Jan 27;25(1):71. doi: 10.1186/s12884-025-07206-x.
The optimum use of antenatal care (ANC) services can reduce pregnancy-related complications and deaths. However, there is limited information on the quality of ANC services in Afghanistan. This study aimed to assess the quality of ANC services and examine the influence of sociodemographic factors on the quality of ANC services received by pregnant women in Afghanistan.
This study analyzed the data from the 2022-23 Afghanistan Multiple Indicators Cluster Survey (MICS), including 9,243 ever-married women aged 15-49 years who had given birth two years prior to the survey. ANC quality was classified as "good" if a woman had at least four ANC visits, initiated ANC during the first trimester, and received all four essential ANC services. Binary logistic regression was employed to examine the likelihood of receiving good-quality ANC across various sociodemographic variables.
Only 6.2% of women received good-quality ANC. Factors significantly associated with receiving good-quality ANC included woman's secondary (AOR:1.87, 95%CI: 1.33-2.63) and higher education levels (AOR: 1.75, 95%CI: 1.01-3.03), household head's higher education level (AOR:1.63, 95%CI: 1.11-2.40), and wealth status (1.71, 2.26, 1.92, and 1.97 higher odds of receiving good-quality ANC for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th as compared to 1st quintiles of wealth, respectively).
The low utilization of good-quality ANC among women in Afghanistan, particularly among those at lower wealth status, with low education levels, underscores the need for targeted interventions to improve access and utilization of antenatal care services.
优化利用产前保健（ANC）服务可减少与妊娠相关的并发症和死亡。然而，关于阿富汗产前保健服务质量的信息有限。本研究旨在评估阿富汗产前保健服务的质量，并探讨社会人口学因素对阿富汗孕妇所接受的产前保健服务质量的影响。
本研究分析了2022 - 23年阿富汗多指标类集调查（MICS）的数据，包括9243名年龄在15 - 49岁、在调查前两年生育过的曾婚妇女。如果一名妇女至少进行了4次产前检查、在孕早期开始接受产前检查并接受了所有四项基本产前保健服务，则将产前保健质量归类为“良好”。采用二元逻辑回归分析各种社会人口学变量下接受高质量产前保健的可能性。
只有6.2%的妇女接受了高质量的产前保健。与接受高质量产前保健显著相关的因素包括妇女的中学教育水平（调整后比值比[AOR]：1.87，95%置信区间[CI]：1.33 - 2.63）和高等教育水平（AOR：1.75，95%CI：1.01 - 3.03）、户主的高等教育水平（AOR：1.63，95%CI：1.11 - 2.40）以及财富状况（与第一财富五分位数相比，第二、第三、第四和第五财富五分位数接受高质量产前保健的几率分别高1.71、2.26、1.92和1.97）。
阿富汗妇女中高质量产前保健的利用率较低，尤其是在财富状况较低、教育水平较低的妇女中，这凸显了需要采取有针对性的干预措施，以改善产前保健服务的可及性和利用率。
