Pregnancy History and Associated Factors among Hawassa University Regular Undergraduate Female Students, Southern Ethiopia, 2020

Introduction: Global incidence of pregnancies among University students is increasing, and challenging in Universities of Ethiopia. There are a few studies on pregnancy experiences among university students in Ethiopia the finding will be used by policymakers, additive of the existing knowledge, and as a reference for future researchers.

Objective: To assess the magnitude of pregnancy experiences and associated factors among Hawassa University regular female students from May 1, 2019, to May 15, 2019.

Methods: Institution based cross-sectional study was conducted from May 1, 2019, to May 15, 2019, and 741 participants were selected using a multistage sampling method from Hawassa University regular undergraduate female students. EPidata for entry and SPSS for analysis were used. Variables with p<0.25 on bivariate were used for multivariable analysis and p<0.05 were considered significant.

Result: Magnitude of pregnancies experience among Hawassa University regular undergraduate female students was 98(13.2%) (95% CI: 10.8, 15.7). College of Agriculture 3.76 (AOR=3.76, 95% CI: 1.66, 8.50), Social Science and Humanity 2.63 (AOR=2.63, 95% CI: 1.02, 6.81), and Natural and Computational Science 3.41 (AOR=3.41, 95% CI: 1.54, 7.54) times more likely to have pregnancy compared to the college of Medicine and Health sciences. Married respondents were 2.39 (AOR=2.39, 95%CI: 1.54, 7.54) times more likely to have pregnancy compared to respondents who were not married. Respondents’ source of income for a parent was 47% (AOR=0.53, 95%CI: 0.29, 0.96) less likely to have pregnancy compared to respondents whose source of income was a partner. Respondents who have a history of using contraceptives were 75% (AOR=0.25, 95%CI: 0.14, 0.44) less likely to have a pregnancy.

Conclusion: The magnitude of pregnancy experience was high among regular undergraduate female students of Hawassa University compared to other studies. Being non-health colleges, married status, partner as a source of income, and not having contraceptive usage history were statistically significant factors to have a pregnancy. Non-health colleges’ needs to be evaluated about their SRH information flow by the university.