Women's autonomy and its effect on choice of place of delivery in Uganda.

Abstract

The general objective of the study was to assess the relationship between women’s autonomy and choice of place of delivery in Uganda. This study employed secondary cross-sectional data from 2011 Uganda Demographic and Health survey. A total of 3,540 married women who had given birth to their last child within five years preceeding the date of interview were selected for the study. Unconstrained partial proportional odds model and logistic regression analyses were conducted to examine the determinants of both women’s autonomy and choice of place of delivery. Both women’s decision making autonomy and women’s attitude towards wife beating were associated with women’s occupation, women’s education, region, and wealth status while financial autonomy was associated with region, women’s occupation and number of children ever born. Decision making autonomy was further associated with residence, age, and husband’s education. Religion was also associated with women’s attitude towards wife beating. Furthermore, the likelihood of health facility delivery was higher for women who reported that a man is not justified to beat his wife. However, choice of place of delivery was independent of decision making autonomy and financial autonomy. Women’s education, husband’s education, number of antenatal care visits, wealth status, parity, residence and region also showed significant association with choice of place of delivery. Education, involving women in decent employment, promotion of women’s participation in Income Generating Activities, civic education programs on rights of women can improve women’s autonomy. Improvement in women’s autonomy, governmental financial support to women of lower social class, incentives and better pay to health workers, increasing availability and accessibility of modern health services, sensitization of women of higher parity about the benefits of health facility delivery can improve delivery from a health facility.