Introduction: Maternal health service (MHS) utilization helps to decrease maternal morbidity and mortality. However, the utilization of MHS is low in Ethiopia compared to the national target and is a complex phenomenon affected by several predictors. Its predictors, barriers, and facilitators differ from region to region in Ethiopia, and existing evidence is not adequate to design effective and efficient intervention strategies. One of the methods to increase the utilization of maternal health care is improving maternal knowledge about obstetric danger signs, skills of birth preparedness, and complication readiness practice using health education. However, the effect of health education on these outcomes had not been comprehensively explored and the presently existing studies reported controversial results.

Objective: This study aims to improve maternal health service utilization among women of reproductive age in the North Zone of the Sidama region, Ethiopia.

Methods: A community-based cross-sectional study will be carried out to assess the utilization and predictors of maternal health care. A phenomenological qualitative study will be conducted to explore perceptions, barriers, and facilitators of maternal health care. A cluster randomized controlled trial will be employed to assess the effect of health education on maternal knowledge about obstetric danger signs, birth preparedness and complication readiness plan, and maternal health service utilization. The minimum required sample size is 1,104 for a cross-sectional study. To explore perceptions, barriers, and facilitators of maternal health care a minimum of 20 in-depth interviews, 3 focus group discussions per group, and 20 key informative interviews will be conducted. The minimum required sample size is 942 for the interventional study. A multi-stage sampling method will be used to select the study participants for a cross-sectional study. A maximum variance sampling method will be used for the qualitative study. A cluster-randomized sampling method will be utilized for the interventional study. Quantitative data will be collected using a validated, pre-tested, and structured questionnaire. Qualitative data will be collected using pre-tested focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, and key informant interview guides until information saturation is reached. The intervention group will be received 12 rounds of pre-recorded audio-based health education. The utilization of maternal health care will be measured at baseline and 6 months after the intervention. Data will be entered into Epi Data version 3.1 and exported to the SPSS and Stata software for analysis. Descriptive analyses will be carried out to get descriptive measures for the important variables of interest. The generalized estimated equations (GEE) analysis will be used to assess the potential predictors of MHSU. The coding and analysis of the qualitative data will be done using the thematic content analysis technique by Atlas-Ti software and presented in narratives. For maternal knowledge about the danger signs and practice of birth preparedness and complication readiness, the multilevel linear regression models will be utilized. The generalized mixed models or GEE will be utilized to adjust for between and within-cluster variation for MHSU. The intention-to-treat analysis will be used to compare outcomes between groups. The independent t-tests will be used to compare the effect of the intervention between the two groups. The statistical significance level will be adjusted to account for the effect of multiple comparison problems using the Bonferroni corrections methods.

Schedule and budget: This study will be conducted from December 2022 to December 2023; the total cost of the project will be 421,600 ETB (7,026.67 EURO) and funded by Hawassa University and the Sidama Regional State Administration.