Magnitude and Associated Factors of Preeclampsia Among Pregnant Women who Attend Antenatal Care Service in Public Health Institutions in Arba Minch Town, Southern Ethiopia, 2016 Mulugeta Shegaze *1 , Yohannes Markos 2 , Wubeshet Estifaons 1 , Iyasu Taye 1 , Erkihun Gemeda 1 , Tigist Gezahegn 1 , Gezahegn Urmale 1 and Weynishet G Tsadik 1 1 Department of Nursing, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arba Minch University, Ethiopia 2 Department of Medical Physiology, Jimma University, Ethiopia * Corresponding author: Mulugeta Shegaze, Department of Nursing, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, Arba Minch, SNNPR, Ethiopia, Tel: +251913828464; E- mail: mulsheg@yahoo.com Received date: November 30, 2016; Accepted date: December 26, 2016; Published date: December 31, 2016 Copyright: © 2016 Shegaze M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Background: Hypertensive disorders of Pregnancy are the major complications that cause about 60% to 80% of all maternal deaths. Preeclamcia is a major hypertensive disorder of pregnancy that had caused maternal mortalities and morbidities all round the world. Objective: To assess the prevalence and factors associated to preeclampsia among pregnant women attending antenatal care service. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted from January 10 to February 09, 2016 among pregnant women who followed anti natal care at public health institutions in Arba Minch town. The study included 422 pregnant women who were selected using systematic random sampling. Semi-structured questionnaire was employed to collect data. The data were entered into EpiData version 3.1 and analyzed using SPSS version 20. Result: The prevalence of preeclampsia was 18.25%. The associated factors of preeclampsia were change of paternity: 4.08 (AOR=4.08; 95% CI: (1.17-14.266)), family history of hypertension: 3.52 (AOR=3.52; 95% CI: (1.31-9.45)) and alcohol use: 8.06 (AOR=8.06; 95% CI: (2.3-28.5)). Conclusion and recommendation: The finding of this study showed that considerable proportion of women had preeclampsia (18.25%). The study showed that different factors affect the occurrence of hypertension during pregnancy. It is important to give health education in order to make the women develop health seeking behavior so that they would get a chance to be diagnosed of preeclampsia as early as possible. Keywords: Preeclampsia; Associated factors; Antenatal care Abbreviations: AMU: Arba Minch University; DM: Diabetes Mellitus; EDHS: Ethiopia Demography HealthSurvey; FP: Family Planning; HNP: Hypertension SNNPR: South Nation Nationality People Region Background Hypertensive Disorders of Pregnancy (HDP) are one of the fve major complications that cause about 60% to 80% of all maternal deaths [1]. Studies indicate that HDP is the main cause for maternal mortality and morbidity all round the world [2,3]. Te latest classifcation system which is used for the classifcation of blood pressure among pregnant categorizes HDP into fve classes: Preeclampsia, Eclampsia, Transient Hypertension of pregnancy, Chronic Hypertension and Preeclampsia superimposed on Chronic Hypertension [4]. Preeclampsia is a pregnancy induced hypertension that causes considerable rise in proteinuria [1]. Investigations revealed that preeclampsia is a predisposing factor for several potentially lethal complications. Placental abruption, disseminated intravascular coagulation, intracranial hemorrhage, hepatic failure, acute renal failure and cardiovascular collapse, intrauterine fetal growth restriction, intrauterine fetal demise and prematurity appear to be the major lethal obstetric problems that result from preeclamcia [5-9]. Preeclampsia is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality and morbidity among pregnant women in the world. Te incidence of the disease shows discrepancy among diferent populations of the world [10]. Te American High Blood Pressure Education Program Working Group report indicates that about 30% of HDP in that country were due to chronic hypertension while 70% of the cases were preeclampsia [5]. Similarly, World Health Organization (WHO) estimate of 2010 indicated that death due to preeclampsia among mothers in Latin- American and Caribbean countries was 25.7%, where as it was 9.1% in Asian and African countries [10,11]. It is also expected that underdeveloped countries are more prone to the problem than developed countries. Studies indicate that there are several risk factors for preeclamcia. Null-parity, extreme ages, race (being black) are some to mention [12-14]. Underdeveloped countries like Ethiopia face worse complications of the problem than the developed ones. Poor Shegaze et al., Gynecol Obstet (Sunnyvale) 2016, 6:12 DOI: 10.4172/2161-0932.1000419 Research Article OMICS International Gynecol Obstet (Sunnyvale), an open access journal ISSN:2161-0932 Volume 6 • Issue 12 • 1000419 G y n e c o l o g y & O b s t e t r i c s ISSN: 2161-0932 Gynecology & Obstetrics