Nursing & Healthcare

Biography

Biography: Ahsen Sirin

Abstract

Objective: To determine the health related attitudes, behaviors and practices of women during pregnancy and to establish appropriate nursery applications that may aid in improvement and promotion of women’s health during pregnancy.

Methods: Data was derived from 244 pregnant women admitted to the obstetrics and gynecology department of a tertiary care centre for their routine follow-up. Two questionnaires consisting of “Personal Introductory Form” and “Health Practice Questionnaire-II” were applied to gather information about demographics and health related knowledge and attitudes. Cronbach’s alpha has yielded a coeffi cient of 0.644 indicating a satisfactory level of reliability.
Results: Pregnants were assigned into 5 age groups as 18-22, 23-27, 28-32, 33-37 and ≥38. No statistically signifi cant diff erence could be detected between age groups in terms of Health Practice Questionnaire-II scores (p=0.849). No statistically signifi cant diff erence could be detected between age groups (p=0.849), marital statuses (p=0.379), economical status (p=0.539), numbers of pregnancies (p=0.057) and site of accomodation (urban vs. rural) (p=0.572) in terms of Health Practice Questionnaire- II (HPQ-II) scores. In contrast, a remarkable diff erence for HPQ-II scores was noted with respect to professions (p=0.001), educational levels (p<0.001) and body-mass indices (p=0.004) of pregnants. No diff erence was noted between planned or unplanned pregnancies with respect to HPQ-II scores (p=0.083). However, HPQ-II scores displayed signifi cant variation between pregnants whose husbands assisted them during daily life and whose husbands did not (p<0.001).

Conclusion: Our results have shown that investigation of the health related behaviors and attitudes of women during pregnancy in addition to increased awareness of nurses could yield substantial contribution to improve the healthcare of pregnant women.