Non-Medical Determinants of Caesarean Deliveries in Ghana: A Logistic Regression Approach

Abstract

This study examined the non-medical factors that influence expectant mothers to opt for caesarean deliveries in Ghana. Data on 395 expectant mothers across the ten regions of Ghana who were located in urban, semi-rural and rural areas, and spanned a period of five years (from 2012 to 2016) were obtained from the Ghana Health Service. In fitting the logistic regression model, data on 355 expectant mothers (i.e. 89.9% of the data) was assigned to the analysis sample while 40 (i.e. 10.1%) was assigned to the hold-out sample. The hold-out sample together with other statistical measures of overall model fit, pseudo R2 measures and classification accuracy were used to validate the results obtained from the analysis sample. Significance was tested at p = 0.05. Determinants including, educational level of expectant mother, parity of expectant mother, baby’s birth weight, previous caesarean delivery, location of expectant mother, age of expectant mother and, period within the year of childbirth had a significant effect on caesarean delivery. The study recommended that health practitioners should be able to foretell expectant mothers who are likely to undergo caesarean delivery in order for them to prepare financially and psychologically to avoid further complications. Due to the significant positive attitude of women towards caesarean delivery rather than normal delivery, it is necessary to inform them about the advantages of normal delivery and the health hazards associated with caesarean delivery to the mother and child.