The purpose of this study was to assess the factors influencing the utilization of skilled birth attendants (SBAs) during childbirth. Furthermore, this study assessed changes in the rate of utilization of SBAs over a five year period from 2001 to 2006 and also evaluated the impact of mass media on utilization. This observational evaluation study is based on a pooled cross-sectional design and uses data from the 2001 and 2006 Nepal Demographic and Health Surveys. The utilization of SBAs in 2006 was still significant (OR 1.29, p<0.01) when compared to data from 2001, even after controlling for the socio-demographic and program variables. The odds of using SBAs was 1.3 times higher in women who had heard/seen reproductive health messages from both radio and television than their counterparts. Women’s level of education and occupation also had a significant effect on utilization.
Although the findings show that utilization of SBAs during childbirth in Nepal had significantly changed in the five-year period examined, this proportion of utilization of SBAs (20.6%) is far below the millennium development goal target of 40 percent for 2005. Different community based programs need to reach poor, illiterate, farming and rural women.