Teshome Getachew,Amanuel Alemu Abajobir and Mekonnen Aychiluhim
Background: Focused antenatal care considers every pregnant woman at high risk for developing pregnancyrelated complications. Hence, all pregnant women should receive at least four antenatal visits to early identify the complications and intervene accordingly. Therefore, this study attempted to assess focused antenatal care service utilization and associated factors among mothers who gave birth in the last 2 years prior to the study in Dejen and Aneded districts, Northwest Ethiopia. Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted on mothers who gave birth in the last 2 years in 2013. Multistage sampling was used to get the total sample size of 521. Pre-tested structured questionnaires were used to collect the data. The data were entered and cleaned by using Epi info version 6 and exported to SPSS version 16.0 software package for analysis. Results: A total of 509 mothers who have history of antenatal care for their last birth in the last two years were included in the study from which 61 (12.0%, 95%CI: 11.87, 12.13) mothers attended focused antenatal care service. Marital status (single/divorce women) (AOR= 3.44, 95%CI: 1.43, 8.26), travelling more than one hour to obtain antenatal services (AOR=8.21, 95%CI: 1.28, 36.8) and abortion history (AOR= 3.57 and 95%CI: 1.62, 7.86) were significantly associated with focused antenatal care service utilization. Conclusion and recommendations: The majority of pregnant mothers did not attend focused antenatal care during their last pregnancy. Marital status, travel time to health facility, history of abortion and illness, plan of pregnancy and sources of information were identified as factors affecting focused antenatal care service utilization. Provision of focused antenatal care should be used as an opportunity for early detection of pregnancy related complications. Women health development army in the districts should be used to disseminate information regarding FANC for pregnant mothers.