A Descriptive Study to assess the knowledge regarding Antenatal care among pregnant women in selected hospitals of Haryana
Mrs. Suman
Research Scholar (Nursing), Shri JJT University, Jhunjhunu, Rajasthan, India.
*Corresponding Author Email: sumanmoun60@gmail.com
ABSTRACT:
Background and aim: The primary aim of antenatal care is to achieve, at the end of pregnancy, a healthy mother and a healthy baby. Antenatal care is a care which is provided in antenatal period which starts from day of conception till the delivery. The aim of study was assessed the knowledge regarding antenatal care among Pregnant women in selected area of Haryana. Materials and Methods: A descriptive research design was used with a convenience sampling technique on 50 pregnant women in selected hospitals of Haryana. Data was collected using a structured questionnaire for knowledge regarding antenatal care. Analysis was done using both descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Majority of the (62%) pregnant women had an excellent level of knowledge, nearly one-fifth (22%) had good level of knowledge and few 8(16%) had an average level of knowledge. None of them have below average knowledge. There was a statistically significant association of qualification and Parity with Knowledge. Conclusion: There was a statistically significant association of qualification and Parity with level of knowledge.
KEYWORDS: Descriptive, Antenatal care, Knowledge, Pregnant women, Hospital.
INTRODUCTION:
During a women life period, pregnancy and child birth are special events indeed in the lives of their families.1 Pregnancy is the vital event of the life of a woman. It needs special attention from the time of conception to the postnatal stage. Pregnancy is a normal process that results in a series of both physiological and psychological changes in expectant mothers. Pregnancy is a natural, but it does not mean that it is nestle-free.2 Antenatal care (ANC) is a careful, systematic assessment and follows up of pregnant a woman that includes education, counseling, screening and treatment to assure the best possible health of the mother and fetus.3 A pregnant female’s antenatal check-up, adapting family planning behavior is influenced by her emotions, motivations, perceptions, and thoughts.
Attitudes influence future behavior no matter the individual’s knowledge and help to explain why an individual adopts one practice and no other alternatives. Practices are defined as the observable actions of pregnant women that could affect her to go to the hospital for antenatal check-up, after knowing the danger signs during pregnancy, how she is making the arrangement to attend hospital and how she had adapting the family planning methods after marriage, in the previous and present pregnancy. The World Health Organization.4 It is a primitive public health intervention to ensure healthy pregnancy outcomes and improve survival and health of newborns. Pregnancy, Labor and child birth are important milestones in a couple’s life Goal 5-A of Millennium Development Goals aims to improve maternal health with the target of reducing Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) by 75% between 1990 and 2005. In India it is heartening to note that MMR has declined from 2012 (178).5 The availability of routine antenatal care including prenatal screening and diagnosis has played a part in reducing maternal death rates and miscarriages as well as birth defects, low birth weights, neonatal infection and other preventable health problems.6 The World Health Organization estimates that 300 million women in the developing world suffer from short-term or long-term morbidities brought about by pregnancy and childbirth. The current maternal mortality ratio in India is 167/100,000 live births (2011–2013), whereas the country's millennium development goal in this respect is 109/100,000 live births by 2015. High levels of infant mortality (50/1000 births), neonatal mortality (29/1000 live births), and maternal mortality (167/100,000 live births), and lower levels of deliveries with skilled assistance (45%-NFHS-3) remain major public-health challenges in India.7
OBJECTIVE OF STUDY:
· To assess the level of knowledge regarding antenatal care among pregnant women.
· To find out the association between knowledge regarding antenatal care among pregnant women with selected socio-demographic variables.
Assumptions:
· Pregnant women may be cooperative and willing to participate in the study.
· Pregnant women may have inadequate knowledge regarding antenatal care.
Delimitation:
· The study was delimited to sample size of 50.
· Study delimited was done in hospitals selected area Haryana.
Research hypotheses:
H1 There will be significant association between level of knowledge on antenatal care among Pregnant women and socio-demographic variables.
REVIEW OF LITERATURE:
· Literature related to assess knowledge regarding Antenatal care.
· Literature related to problems of Antenatal women.
· Literature related to physiological changes during pregnancy.
METHODOLOGY:
Research approach: Non-experimental approach.
Research design: Descriptive design will be adopted for this study.
Research Variable: Knowledge about Antenatal care of pregnant Women’s.
Setting of the study: Hospitals of Haryana.
Population: Ante natal women at hospitals of Haryana.
Sample: Ante-natal women who fulfil the inclusion criteria will be consider as a sample.
Sample size: Sample size consists of 50 Ante-natal women at hospitals of Haryana.
Sampling Technique: Probability sampling technique had been used for selection of the subject.
Results and interpretation:
Table 1: Frequency and Percentage Distribution of Samples according to Level of Knowledge on Antenatal Care.
N = 50
|
S. No |
Level of Knowledge |
Frequency (f) |
Percentage (%) |
|
1. |
Excellent (16 – 20) |
31 |
62 |
|
2. |
Good (11 – 15) |
11 |
22 |
|
3. |
Average (6 – 10) |
08 |
16 |
|
4. |
Below Average (1 – 5) |
00 |
00 |
Table 1: shows that Majority of the pregnant women 31 (62%) had an excellent level of knowledge, nearly one-fifth 11(22%) had good level of knowledge and few 8 (16%) had an average level of knowledge. None of them have below average knowledge
Figure 1: Frequency and Percentage Distribution of Samples according to Level of Knowledge on Antenatal Care
Table 2: The association between knowledge regarding antenatal care and selected demographic variables N=50
|
S. No |
Demographic Variables |
Chi – Square |
Degree of Freedom |
‘P’ Value |
Association |
|
1. |
Age |
6.903 |
3 |
0.750 |
Not Significant |
|
2. |
Qualification |
7.8481 |
3 |
0.04925 |
Significant* |
|
3. |
Occupation |
0.201 |
1 |
0.6538 |
Not Significant |
|
4. |
Family Type |
0.6743 |
1 |
0.41154 |
Not Significant |
|
5. |
Religion |
0.5103 |
1 |
0.4749 |
Not Significant |
|
6. |
Family Income |
1.4449 |
3 |
0.6950 |
Not Significant |
|
7. |
Locality |
0.6888 |
1 |
0.4065 |
Not Significant |
|
8. |
Parity |
5.0236 |
1 |
0.2500 |
Significant* |
There will be no significant association between level of knowledge and demographic variables like age, occupation, family type, religion, family income, location. And parity and qualification have significant association can be stated as follow.
CONCLUSION:
The present study was conducted among 50 pregnant women to assess the knowledge regarding antenatal care. The findings of the present study concluded that pregnant women had an excellent knowledge regarding antenatal care. The knowledge regarding antenatal care among pregnant women was statistically tested and found to be significant with qualification and parity 29.
NURSING IMPLICATIONS:
Nursing education:
The nurses play a key role in educating people regarding ante-natal care among ante-natal women to students in Hospitals and schools. Increasing awareness and understanding of the phenomena among the general population will result in high level of ante-natal care among ante-natal women and that will spontaneously reduce the morbidity of children due to problems of lack of knowledge regarding ante-natal care. The investigator as a nurse felt the need that nurses should act as facilitators to educate antenatal women, teachers and general population regarding ante-natal care.
Nursing research:
Nurses being the largest group in health care delivery system should take initiative to conduct further research studies in antenatal care among ante-natal women. The study will motivate the beginning researcher to conduct same study with different variables on a large scale considering individual aspects. The findings of the present study are helpful for the nursing professionals and nursing teachers to conduct further studies to find out the effectiveness of various methods of providing education on improving the knowledge regarding ante-natal care.
Nursing administration:
Nurse administrator should take interest in motivating the nursing personnel to improve their professional knowledge and skill by attending the workshops, conferences, seminars on ante-natal care. Nurse administrator should arrange regular in-service education program to the health care workers for gaining knowledge. The nurse administrators should explore their potentials and encourage innovative ideas in the ante-natal care among ante-natal women.
Nursing practice:
Nurse owes a great responsibility in educating the women regarding ante-natal care. Nurses by getting knowledge and impact into their clinical practice. Many nurses can conduct evidence base nursing practice by referring to these results. Nurses can use to assess the level of knowledge regarding ante-natal care in clinical as well as in community settings that will play a vital role in reducing the morbidity due to lack of knowledge regarding ante-natal care.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
On the basis of findings following recommendations are offered for further research:
· A similar study can be conducted in large sample in different areas.
· A comparative study can be conducted in different setting like rural and urban areas.
· A video teaching programme can be conducted in large scale to the ante-natal women of selected civil hospital in Haryana to improve ante-natal care.
REFERENCES:
1. Mrs. Babitha Mathew: Knowledge and practice of pregnant women regarding antenatal care 2009. Available at www.rguhs.ac.in/.../05-N294-25091.doc
2. Kaur A, Kaur M, Kaur R. Birth Preparedness among Antenatal Mothers. Amritsar. Nursing and Midwifery Research Journal 2015; 11:153-162. Available from: http://medind.nic.in/nad/t15/i4/nadt15i4p153.pdf. [Last accessed on 2017 Jan 03].
3. NITI Ayog. Infant mortality rate (IMR) (PER 1000 LIVE BIRTH) [online] 2017 January 21 [cited on 2017 June 13]. Available from URL: niti. Living and Loving. The importance of antenatal care [online] [cited on 2017 June 10].
4. WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, The World Bank, United Nations Population Division. Trends in Maternal Mortality: 1990 to 2015. WHO Reference Number: WHO /RHR/15.23. Available from: https://www. who.int/reproductive/health/publications/monitoring/maternal-mortality-2015; Available from: https:// www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/maternalmortality
5. Centers of disease control and prevention. Infant mortality [internet] [cited on 2017 July 25]. Available from URL: www.cdc.gov>reproductivehealth
6. Dr. Nisara Tajamal. Impact of antenatal care on birth outcome at tertiary care unit [online]. 2016 February 7 [ cited on 2017 June 14]. Available from URL: https://www.linkedin.com
7. Kabakyenga JK, Östergren PO, Turyakira E and Pettersson KO, Knowledge of obstetric danger signs and birth preparedness practices among women in rural Uganda, https://reproductive-healthjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-4755-8-33. [Last accessed on 2017 Feb 06].
Received on 22.01.2021 Modified on 19.02.2021
Accepted on 10.03.2021 ©AandV Publications All right reserved
Asian J. Nursing Education and Research. 2021; 11(3):337-339.
DOI: 10.52711/2349-2996.2021.00081