Health-related quality of life determinants among Rwandan women after delivery: does antenatal care utilization matter? A cross-sectional study

Background Despite the widespread use of antenatal care (ANC), its effectiveness in low-resource settings remains unclear. In this study, self-reported health-related quality of life (HRQoL) was used as an alternative to other maternal health measures previously used to measure the effectiveness of antenatal care. The main objective of this study was to determine whether adequate antenatal care utilization is positively associated with women’s HRQoL. Furthermore, the associations between the HRQoL during the first year (1–13 months) after delivery and socio-economic and demographic factors were explored in Rwanda.