Abstract:
Background: Pregnancy loss is the terminated pregnancy before the completed pregnancy
time. It is common in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. The main objective of thisstudy wasto
identify the determinants and spatial distribution of pregnancy loss among zones of Ethiopia.
Method: This study used the 2016 Ethiopia Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS), which
was a community-based cross-sectional study design. All women of reproductive age within 5
years before the survey and having pregnancy history were the study population. The total
women were 7,194. The spatial analysis and the multilevel models were performed using SAS
9.4 and STATA 17. Model performance was done with AIC and BIC and the smallest isrevealed
the best model.
Results: The prevalence of pregnancy lossin thisstud ywas 11.80%. The estimated intra-class
correlation was 0.0765. Thisindicates about 7.65% of the total variation for pregnancy loss was
due to the difference between zones whereas the remaining 92.35% of the variability to be
accounted for individual and other unknown factors. The Ethiopian administrative zone Somali
Zone 4, western Tigray, North Gondar, Mekele, southern Tigray, Eastern Tigray, Somali Zone
2, Wag Hemira, North Wollo, South Wollo, Oromia Zone, Somali unknown zone, Dega Habour,
Hundene, Dire Dawa and western Gojjam were the higherrisk area of pregnancy loss.
Conclusion: Thisstudy demonstrated that pregnancy losses vary across administrative zones
in Ethiopia and both the hot-and cold spot areas were identified. Based on AIC and BIC binary
multilevel model was preferred. The community husband education at the community level and
residence, ANC, maternal work status, household number, wanted pregnancy, birth order,
contraceptive, place delivery, Media Exposure, and BMI were significant factorsfor pregnancy
loss.
Keywords: pregnancy loss, multilevel, EDHS, ICC,spatial Analysis, Hotspot, Ethiopia