Batura, Neha;
Poupakis, Stavros;
Das, Sushmita;
Bapat, Ujwala;
Alcock, Glyn;
Skordis, Jolene;
Haghparast-Bidgoli, Hassan;
... Osrin, David; + view all
(2022)
Factors associated with women's healthcare decision-making during and after pregnancy in urban slums in Mumbai, India: a cross-sectional analysis.
BMC Public Health
, 22
(1)
, Article 743. 10.1186/s12889-022-13216-7.
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Understanding factors associated with women's healthcare decision-making during and after pregnancy is important. While there is considerable evidence related to general determinants of women's decision-making abilities or agency, there is little evidence on factors associated with women's decision-making abilities or agency with regards to health care (henceforth, health agency), especially for antenatal and postnatal care. We assessed women's health agency during and after pregnancy in slums in Mumbai, India, and examined factors associated with increased participation in healthcare decisions. METHODS: Cross-sectional data were collected from 2,630 women who gave birth and lived in 48 slums in Mumbai. A health agency module was developed to assess participation in healthcare decision-making during and after pregnancy. Linear regression analysis was used to examine factors associated with increased health agency. RESULTS: Around two-thirds of women made decisions about perinatal care by themselves or jointly with their husband, leaving about one-third outside the decision-making process. Participation increased with age, secondary and higher education, and paid employment, but decreased with age at marriage and household size. The strongest associations were with age and household size, each accounting for about a 0.2 standard deviation difference in health agency score for each one standard deviation change (although in different directions). Similar differences were observed for those in paid employment compared to those who were not, and for those with higher education compared to those with no schooling. CONCLUSION: Exclusion of women from maternal healthcare decision-making threatens the effectiveness of health interventions. Factors such as age, employment, education, and household size need to be considered when designing health interventions targeting new mothers living in challenging conditions, such as urban slums in low- and middle-income countries.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Factors associated with women's healthcare decision-making during and after pregnancy in urban slums in Mumbai, India: a cross-sectional analysis |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1186/s12889-022-13216-7 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-13216-7 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. |
| Keywords: | Agency, Healthcare utilisation, India, Maternal health, Cross-Sectional Studies, Decision Making, Delivery of Health Care, Female, Humans, Male, Poverty Areas, Pregnancy, Socioeconomic Factors |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10146980 |
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