ARTICLE INFO

Article Type

Descriptive & Survey Study

Authors

Sadeghi   A. (1)
Rohani   H. (*1)
Bidkhori   M. (2)
Davari   M. (3)
Mohammadi Vahid   F. (4)
Bazi   H. (4)






(1) Public Health Department, Faculty of Medical Sciences Esfarayen, Esfarayen, Iran
(2) Epidemiology Department, Health Faculty, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
(3) Business Management Department, Management Faculty, Bojnourd Branch, Islamic Azad University, Bojnourd, Iran
(4) Student Research Committee, Faculty of Medical Sciences Esfarayen, Esfarayen, Iran

Correspondence

Address: Faculty of Medical Sciences Esfarayen, Imam Reza Street, Esfarayen, North Khorasan, Iran.
Phone: +98 (58) 31550630
Fax:
hoseinrohani3@gmail.com

Article History

Received:  November  19, 2018
Accepted:  March 31, 2019
ePublished:  September 21, 2019

BRIEF TEXT


Pregnancy is one of the most important stages of women's life. Pregnant women have more physical and psychological needs for themselves and their baby due to changes, so they need more care [1].

.. [2, 3]. One of the main barriers to cares through pregnancy is the mothers' low understanding of their benefits and health risks [4, 5]. Studies have shown that this may be due to lower maternal health literacy (women's skill for proper access, understanding and using information to maintain the health of themselves and their children) [6], followed by lack of awareness and proper understanding of health information [1, 7]. In this regard, studies have shown that people with lower health literacy are significantly less likely to go to health care centers for vaccine prevention, weight control and screening [8 - 10]. The importance of this issue is becoming increasingly apparent when it comes to knowing that a woman's health literacy status, in addition to affecting her health, can affect a child's health before pregnancy, during pregnancy, and during growth periods. Accordingly, women's health literacy has been emphasized as one of the determinants of child health [11]. … [12-19].

The aim of this study was to determine the health literacy of newly delivered mothers and their related factors in Esfarayen.

This is a cross-sectional descriptive-analytical study.

This study was conducted in Esfarayen on newly delivered mothers.

According to the study by Kharrazi et al. [20] and with a confidence level of 95%, error of 0.9 and standard deviation of 7.5, the sample size was calculated to be at least 266 subjects. The stratified random sampling method was used, so that at first stratified number of samples from each health canter was determined and from each available sampling center using the same number (sampling from the subjects on sampling day) was done. Inclusion criteria included delivery in the past month and consent to participate in the study. In addition, those who did not wish to continue cooperating while completing the questionnaire were excluded.

The standard questionnaire of maternal health literacy (MHLAPQ) was used. .... [14, 21]. After obtaining a letter of introduction, the researcher referred to the health centers (9 centers) to complete the questionnaires. All those who met the inclusion criteria who were present at the health center on sampling day were invited to participate in the study. Initially, the aims of the study and how to complete the questionnaire were explained to the participants. Each questionnaire took 5 minutes to complete. After completing the questionnaire in case of incomplete answers, the subjects were again asked to respond to the questionnaire aided by questioner. The data were analyzed by SPSS software. Descriptive statistics and independent T-test and one-way ANOVA were used to analyze the results.

Of 266 pregnant women, 84 women (31.6%) had high school education and 191 women (71.8%) were housewives. Moreover, birth weight in 225 cases (84.6%) was more than 2500 grams. The mean of maternal health literacy in pregnant women was 57.07 ± 9.94, with the lowest score of 16 and highest score of 68 in pregnant women. There was a significant relationship between maternal occupation and maternal health literacy (p <0.001), so that the employed mothers had higher mean health literacy. Also, there was a statistically significant relationship between maternal education and health literacy (p <0.001), so that those with higher education had higher mean health literacy. Mothers who had more pregnancies had lower average health literacy (p = 0.046). There was no statistically significant relationship between maternal health literacy with ferrous sulfate supplementation, multivitamin supplementation and birth weight (Table 1).

The findings of the present study showed that the mean health literacy of pregnant mothers was 57.07 ± 9.94. In this regard, in the Kharazi et al. study [20] on 120 pregnant women in Mashhad, the mean level of health literacy of pregnant women was 42.47 using the questionnaire used in the present study, which reflects the better status of pregnant women in Esfarayen regarding maternal health literacy. In the present study, there was no significant relationship between maternal health literacy and the care during pregnancy, as well as the care during pregnancy, including ferrous sulfate and multivitamin supplementation, which is not consistent with the study by Kharazi et al. [20]. In the present study, there was a significant relationship between the level of health literacy with mother's education and job, so that mothers with higher education and occupation had higher maternal health literacy. In many relevant studies on pregnant mothers in different areas, such as studies by Ghanbari et al. [22], Baqaei et al. [19], Masoumi et al. [18], and Lee [23], the results have shown that mothers with higher educational levels and employed mothers had higher health literacy…. [24].

In future research, it is suggested to increase the demographic items in the questionnaire, as this can lead the researcher to greater results.

Of the limitations of this study was the available sampling due to the time limit and small sample size.

Maternal health literacy status in newly delivered mothers in Esfarayen is in a desirable status and job and education level are factors related to maternal health literacy.

We would also like to thank the support of Esfarayen Medical School, as well as all those who have assisted in completing the questionnaire and other processes of this research.

None declared.

This study was approved by the Ethics Committee for Research at Esfarayen School of Medical (ID.ESFARAYENUMS.REC.1396.37).

This research was funded by the Student Research Committee of Esfarayen Medical School (research ID: 41-T01-1396).

TABLES and CHARTS

Show attach file


CITIATION LINKS

[1]Amiresmaili M, Nekooei Moghadam M, Saberi Anari S, Sadeghi A, Saber M, Taheri G, et al. Study of health literacy level of women referring to health centers in 2010. J North Khorasan Univ Med Sci. 2014;5(5 and S5):1071-8. [Persian]
[2]Mellon M, Schiller A, Nelson AL, Stohl HE, Dong F. Poor understanding of pregnancy-associated health risks among indigent pregnant women [23N]. Obstet Gynecol. 2018;131:p158S.
[3]Yamamoto JM, Hughes DJF, Evans ML, Karunakaran V, Clark JDA, Morrish NJ, et al. Community-based pre-pregnancy care programme improves pregnancy preparation in women with pregestational diabetes. Diabetologia. 2018;61(7):1528-37.
[4]Gee S, Vargas J, Foster AM. “The more children you have, the more praise you get from the community”: exploring the role of sociocultural context and perceptions of care on maternal and newborn health among Somali refugees in UNHCR supported camps in Kenya. Conflict Health. 2019;13(1):11.
[5]Perdok H, Verhoeven CJ, van Dillen J, Schuitmaker TJ, Hoogendoorn K, Colli J, et al. Continuity of care is an important and distinct aspect of childbirth experience: findings of a survey evaluating experienced continuity of care, experienced quality of care and women’s perception of labor. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2018;18(1):13.
[6]Sykes S, Wills J, Rowlands G, Popple K. Understanding critical health literacy: a concept analysis. BMC Public Health. 2013;13(1):150.
[7]Spedding MF, Stein DJ, Naledi T, Sorsdahl K. Pregnant women's mental health literacy and perceptions of perinatal mental disorders in the Western Cape, South Africa. Ment Health Prev. 2018;11:16-23.
[8]Sanders LM, Shaw JS, Guez G, Baur C, Rudd R. Health literacy and child health promotion: implications for research, clinical care, and public policy. Pediatrics. 2009;124(Suppl 3):S306-14.
[9]Maybury C, Horowitz AM, La Touche-Howard S, Child W, Battanni K, Qi Wang M. Oral health literacy and dental care among low-income pregnant women. Am J Health Behav. 2019;43(3):556-68.
[10]Vamos CA, Merrell L, Detman L, Louis J, Daley E. Exploring women's experiences in accessing, understanding, appraising, and applying health information during pregnancy. J Midwifery Womens Health. 2019;64(4):472-80.
[11]Najimi A, Golshiri P, Amini S. Health literacy and self-care in reproductive age: The role of reading and numeracy skills. J Nurs Educ. 2018;6(5):19-24. [Persian]
[12]Sørensen K, Pelikan JM, Röthlin F, Ganahl K, Slonska Z, Doyle G, et al. Health literacy in Europe: comparative results of the European health literacy survey (HLS-EU). Eur J Public Health. 2015;25(6):1053-8.
[13]Negarandeh R, Mahmoodi H, Noktehdan H, Heshmat R, Shakibazadeh E. Teach back and pictorial image educational strategies on knowledge about diabetes and medication/dietary adherence among low health literate patients with type 2 diabetes. Prim Care Diabetes. 2013;7(2):111-8.
[14]Mojoyinola JK. Influence of maternal health literacy on healthy pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes of women attending public hospitals in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. Afr Res Rev. 2011;5(3):28-39.
[15]Berkman ND, Sheridan SL, Donahue KE, Halpern DJ, Crotty K. Low health literacy and health outcomes: an updated systematic review. Ann Intern Med. 2011;155(2):97-107.
[16]Easton P, Entwistle VA, Williams B. Health in the 'hidden population' of people with low literacy. A systematic review of the literature. BMC Public Health. 2010;10(1):459.
[17]Sajjadi H, Hosseinpour N, Sharifian Sani M, Mahmoodi Z. Association between health literacy and life style in married rural women in Izeh, Iran. J Health. 2016;7(4):479-89. [Persian]
[18]Masoumy M, Jokar Z, Hamedi S, Raissifar A, Zeratpisheh F, Ghaedi F. The relationship between maternal health literacy with Prenatal Cares in pregnant women referring to health centers. J Health Literacy. 2018;3(2):113-23.
[19]Baghaei R, Najarzadeh M, Saei M, Mohammadi N. Functional health literacy in pregnant women in health centers of Urmia city- 2015. J Urmia Nurs Midwifery Fac. 2017;15(5):368-75. [Persian]
[20]Kharazi SS, Peyman N, Esmaili H. The relationship between the health literacy of pregnant mothers and their care Pregnancy and its consequences. Iran Women Obstet Infertil J. 2016;19(37):40-50. [Persian]
[21]Kharazi SS, Peyman N, Esmaili H. An Evaluation of the validity and reliability of the maternal health literacy and pregnancy outcome questionnaire. J Health Syst Res. 2017;12(4):512-9. [Persian]
[22]Ganbari S, Majlesi F, Ghafari M, Mahmoodi Majdabadi M. Evaluation of health literacy of pregnant women in urban health centers of Shahid Beheshti Medical University. Daneshvar Medi. 2012;19(97):1-12. [Persian]
[23]Lee JY. Maternal health literacy among low-income mothers with infants [Dissertation]. Austin, Texas: University of Texas; 2016.
[24]Izadirad H, Niknami S, Zareban I, Tavousi M. Health literacy and prenatal care adequacy index on the outcome of birth weight in pregnant women in Balochistan, Iran. Payesh. 2018;17(2):191-8. [Persian]