Prevalence and determinants of unintended pregnancy among antenatal attendees at ESUT Teaching Hospital Parklane Enugu, Nigeria

Background: An unintended pregnancy is a pregnancy that is unwanted or mistimed. Even though preventable it has remained a significant source of morbidity and mortality to women in our environment. There is paucity of studies on prevalence and determinants of unintended pregnancy among antenatal attendees in our environment.
Objective: To determine the prevalence and determinants of unintended pregnancy among antenatal attendees at ESUT Teaching Hospital Parklane Enugu, Nigeria
Materials and methods: A total of 387 pregnant women were interviewed with semi-structured questionnaire following consent at the antenatal clinic of ESUT Teaching Hospital Parklane, Enugu. Convenient sampling method was used. Data collected were entered into excel and later exported to SPSS version 27 with which it was analyzed.
Results: Prevalence of unintended pregnancy among the respondents was 27.4%. Marital status (COR = 0.15; 95% CI: 0.06–0.39; p =<0.001), parity (COR =0.33; 95% CI: 0.18–0.61; p =<0.001), and history of spontaneous miscarriage (COR =2.27; 95% CI: 1.17–4.42; p =0.016) were identified to be significantly associated with unintended pregnancy.
Conclusion: Prevalence of unintended pregnancy among the respondents was 27.4%. Being unmarried, having parity of greater than 2 and previous history of spontaneous miscarriage were identified as predictors of unintended pregnancy. Effort should be made to increase awareness and use of contraceptives among all women in our environment however unmarried women should be particularly targeted with this campaign because of their increased risk for unintended pregnancy.