Triggering factors associated with the utilization of antenatal care visits in Bangladesh: An application of negative binomial regression model

Objectives: Antenatal care has several benefits for expecting mothers and birth outcomes and this study attempts to investigate the prevalence and estimate the risk factors of antenatal care visits utilization in Bangladesh. Material and methods: In our study, using the data set BDHS 2014 we have fitted the Poisson Regression Model and Negative Binomial models. Results: The most significant factors are respondent's residents (IRR = 0.845, CI: .778, .918), wealth index (IRR = 1.326, CI: 1.186, 1.482), respondent education (IRR = 1.753, CI: 1.461, 2.104) and media access (IRR = 1.235, CI: 1.125, 1.355) with a p-value P < 0.001. Our study found a strong association between the place of residence of the respondents and ANC received by the respondents. In the case of model selection, the Negative Binomial Regression Model had the least -2logL (18647.236), AIC (18695.237) and BIC (18848.690). Conclusion: The results of our study strongly demonstrate that the factors respondent's education level, wealth index, respondent's residents, media access and birth order number have great influence in the utilization of antenatal care services. This study also showed that the Negative Binomial Regression Model was the better fitted in identifying factors associated with ANC visits in Bangladesh.