Environmental factors affecting the delivery practices of hospital-based intrapartum care

The annual World Health Organization reports confirm over 295 000 maternal deaths globally with most of these occurring during delivery. Interestingly, some studies have established a significant relationship between environmental factors and hospital-based intrapartum care.

This study investigated the associated environmental factors among women presenting for peripartum care at the Ketté District Hospital.

The study was conducted at the Ketté District Hospital.

This quantitative cross-sectional study was conducted at the Ketté District Hospital on women presenting for peripartum care. A convenient sampling was used while a self-administered questionnaire was the data collecting tool to measure environmental factors affecting the delivery practices. Using IBM-SPSS version 29.0, logistic regression served for data analysis with statistical significance considered at p  0.05.

The study involved 471 women presenting for peripartum care, of whom 325 (69.0%) were aged 18-25 years. Most women, 429 (91.1%), indicated having used earthed road links to the hospital. The majority agreed having suffered complications during delivery. Means of transportation (p = 0.010), number of past pregnancies (p = 0.044), place of delivery (p = 0.001) and delivery outcome (p = 0.001) were significantly associated with delivery complications.

The study found that delivery complications were significantly associated with means of transportation to antenatal visit, place of delivery, delivery outcome and number of pregnancies.Contribution: This study contributed to a better understanding of the effects of environmental factors on the utilisation of healthcare services during the intrapartum period in rural communities of Cameroon.