Prevalence and Associated Factors of Pre-eclampsia among Pregnant Women at Antenatal Booking in the Halaba Kullito General Hospital, Southern Ethiopia.

Background: Pre-eclampsia is a multi-system hypertensive disorder specific to pregnancy. It is one of the leading causes of maternal, foetal and neonatal morbidity and mortality worldwide particularly, in developing countries. However, in Ethiopia there is a paucity of information on the prevalence and determinants of pre-eclampsia. Hence, this study aimed to assess the prevalence and associated factors of pre-eclampsia among pregnant women at antenatal booking in the Halaba Kullito General Hospital,Southern Ethiopia. Method: This a hospital-based cross-sectional was conducted on 242 women using systematic sampling technique during February 1-28, 2019. Data were collected using a pre-tested, structured interviewer-administered questionnaire and chart review, which was performed to obtain women’s medical information and laboratory test results that could not be acquired by the interview. Data were entered into EpiData (version 3.1) and analyzed using SPSS (version 24). Both bivariate and multiple variable logistic regression analysis were computed. Odds ratio with their 95% confidence intervals (CI) were calculated to measure the strength of the association between the outcome and the independent variables. P-value <0.05 was considered as a statistically significant. Results: In the study setting, the prevalence of pre-eclampsia was observed to be 9.9%. Previous history of pre-eclampsia [AOR=8.9, 95% CI (1.03, 16.61], gestational diabetes mellitus [AOR=5.8, (1.38, 17.54)] and twin pregnancy [AOR=1.72, 95% CI (1.05, 3.71)] were associated factors of pre-eclampsia. Conclusions: A considerable proportion of pregnant women were experienced pre-eclampsia. Previous history of pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes mellitus and multiple gestations were associated factors of pre-eclampsia. Therefore, the finding suggests that health care providers and other stakeholders should use these risk factors as a screening mechanism for the timely identification and management of pre-eclampsia by regular antenatal monitoring and careful follow-up.