Payesh (Apr 2005)
Knowledge of pregnant women attending Imam Khomeini Hospital about high-risk pregnancies
Abstract
Objectives: To determine the knowledge of pregnant women about factors predisposing to high-risk states. Methods: 407 pregnant women were studied in Imam Khomeini hospital in 1998. we used a questionnaire (With scores for each item ranging from 0 to 4) to evaluate the knowledge of the respondents. Results: 50.4% of the subjects were 20-29 years old, 35.6% were primigravidas and 75.5% were receiving prenatal care. 326 women (80.1%) knew about high-risk ages for pregnancy (35 years). More than 90% had a high level of knowledge about some special diseases before and during pregnancy and also about addictions during pregnancy (Tobacco, narcotics and other drugs) as predisposing factors for high-risk pregnancy. The frequency of high-level knowledge of the warning signs in the current pregnancy was 7.4%. The same figure for warning signs in the past pregnancies was 17.7%. A total of 309 women (75.9%) had a high level of knowledge. Moderate and low levels of knowledge were recorded in 90 (22.1%) and 8 subjects (2%), respectively. There was a significant relation between knowledge and education, parity and the use of prenatal care services (P=0.0001). Conclusion: The findings indicated that the pregnant women had fairly good knowledge about high-risk pregnancies and the use of prenatal care significantly contributed to present condition. Thus, there is need to encourage women to use such services move frequently.
