One of the most important elements of mother and child services is antenatal care. Antenatal care ensures that pregnant women go through a check-up at various intervals and can prevent mother and child deaths by identifying pregnancy related complications and fetal abnormalities at an early stage and treating them if necessary. This study aims to assess the knowledge and practices of Saudi mothers giving birth at King Abdulaziz Specialist Hospital in Taif City regarding antenatal care during year 2009 and identify the socio-demographic determinants of KAP among these mothers.
Methodology
It was a cross-sectional, self-administered questionnaire-based survey. 400 Saudi mothers in their post-partum period, before they were discharged from King Abdulaziz Specialist Hospital were included during the month of October 2009.
Results
The age of the mothers ranged between 16 and 44 years, the larger proportion of them (63.0%) was living in Taif city, 14.3% were illiterate and 86.6% were house wives. Results of this study showed that there were statistically significant differences in the knowledge of mothers about antenatal care according to their socio-demographic factors (age, family income, level of education and occupational status). On the other hand age and place of residence didn't show any statistically significant association with the number of visits whereas education, distances to the nearest antenatal care center, previous abortions and satisfaction were significantly associated.
Conclusion
Based on the findings of this study it can be concluded that vast majority of mothers had 4 or more antenatal visits with majority first visits during 1st trimester; knowledge of most of the mothers was satisfactory and only half were completely satisfied with the services. Statistically significant association was observed between mother's knowledge about ANC with age, family income, mother's education, mother's occupation, husband's education, husband's occupation, increasing gravidity and history of abortion. Four or more AN visits were found statistically significantly associated with family income, mother's education, distance from center, history of abortion, mother's knowledge and mother's satisfaction with AN services.