Análise dos factores associados a mortalidade fetal em Moçambique

Abstract

Despite the advances made in the area of health, it app ears that fetal death remains a concern for public health services, as it was neglected for a long time and few investments were made to reduce it. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), fetal death remains a fo cus of concern for public health services, esp ecially in underdevelop ed and developing countries, as approximately 2.6 million fetal deaths o ccurred worldwide in 2015. Fetal mortality continues to b e an imp ortant public health challenge in Mozambique. Various activities have b een carried out, from its inclusion in government programs to greater commitment and institutional supp ort. intra and intersectoral, with the involvement of all ministries, national partnerships, NGOs, the United Nations and communities. Therefore, the present work aims to identify the main factors that contribute to fetal mortality in Mozambique and pro duce a mo del capable of estimating the probability of its o ccurrence. For this purp ose, Logis tic Regression analysis was applied, which is a technique that assesses the probability of o ccurrence of a given event and how each variable inflences the outcome of the studied event. The sample originally contained 1,377 variables and 33,900 observations. After selecting relevant variables for the study, 46 variables were chosen. After the data cleaning and organization pro cess, the fial dataset consisted of 30,514 observations of which, the p ercentage of female babies is 50.43%, while that of male babies is 49.57%. The study revealed that several factors are asso ciated with fetal mortality. These include the mother’s age, infections during pregnancy, history of previous miscarriages, and previous fetal deaths . The mother’s educational level also stands out, with mothers with a higher educational level presenting a lower risk. Other imp ortant factors are wealth quintile, religion, marital status, geographic region, access to health care, and maternal health information. Psychological stress, alcohol and drug consumption, smoking, and exp osure to domestic violence during pregnancy were identifid as signifiant risk factors. The presence of healthcare professionals during birth and p o or prenatal care were also critical determinants.