Author(s)

Hassan H. M. Zaky^1,2,3*, Dina M. Armanious², Mohamed Ali Hussein^4,5

¹School of Humanities and Social Sciences, the American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt.
²Department of Statistics, Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt.
³Social Research Center of the American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt.
⁴Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Kingston University, London, UK,.
⁵Faculty of Commerce, South Valley University, Qena, Egypt.

Objectives: This study empirically assesses the impact of the changes in women’s characteristics, empowerment, availability and quality of health services on woman’s decision to use antenatal care (ANC) and the frequency of that use during the period 2000-2008. Study Design: The study is a cross-sectional analytical study using 2000 and 2008 Egypt Demographic and Health Surveys. Methods: The assessment of the studied impact is conducted using the Zero-inflated Negative Binomial Regression. In addition, Factor Analysis technique is used to construct some of the explanatory variables such as women’s empowerment, the availability and quality of health services indicators. Results: Utilization of antenatal health care services is greatly improved from 2000 to 2008. Availability of health services is one of the main determinants that affect the number of antenatal care visits in 2008. Wealth index and quality of health services play an important role in raising the level of antenatal care utilization in 2000 and 2008. However, the impact of the terminated pregnancy on receiving ANC increased over time. Conclusions: Further research of the determinants of antenatal health care utilization is needed, using more updated measures of women’s empowerment, availability and quality of health services. In order to improve the provision of antenatal health care services, it is important to understand barriers to antenatal health care utilization. Therefore, it is advisable to collect information from women about the reasons for not receiving antenatal care.

Women’s Characteristics, Antenatal Health Care, Women’s Empowerment, Zero-Inflated Negative Binomial Regression, Egypt

Zaky, H. , Armanious, D. and Hussein, M. (2015) Impact of the Changes in Women’s Characteristics over Time on Antenatal Health Care Utilization in Egypt (2000-2008). Open Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, 5, 542-552. doi: 10.4236/ojog.2015.510078.