The quality of prenatal care provided in Bandar Abbas health centers during the pandemic covid-19

Abstract

ABESTERAC: Introduction: Prenatal or delivery care is regarded as a service provided to ensure the best health conditions for women and fetuses during pregnancy. The quality of prenatal care plays an important role in the prevention, monitoring, and timely diagnosis and treatment of maternal health problems, enhancement of maternal satisfaction, and health care utilization. Given that Covid-19 has occurred through human-to-human transmission and has spread in more than 200 countries of the world since the end of December 2019, pregnancy care was seriously affected and pregnant women’s involvement with the Covid-19 involvement may have serious consequences for pregnant women. Accordingly, the present study aimed to investigate the quality of prenatal care during the Covid-19 pandemic. Material and methods This cross sectional study was carried out in Bandar Abbas from September to December 2021. The study population were 400 pregnant women (third trimester) referred to health centers who received at least 3 times of prenatal care services by telephone or face to face and had a health record. Data were collected using the demographic characteristic and quality of prenatal care questionnaires and prenatal care checklist. The sampling was done from 21 health centers in Bandar Abbas using multi stage method, as 7 centers were randomly selected and sample was selected from each center considering the covered population and pregnant women. Results Based on the results, less than 10% of the participants received full routine prenatal care. Sharing information mean (SD) 3.8 (0.47) and approachability mean (SD) 2.0 (0.69) received the highest and lowest score of the quality of prenatal care, respectively. Infertility history ]β(CI95%): -0.32 (0.64-0.29), p= 0.008[ and low level of education ]β (CI95%): 0.83 (0.5-0.9), p= 0001[ were two variables predicting the perceived service quality. Measuring the weight was the most care provided to mothers (96.8%) and oral and teeth health (33.3%) was the least. Conclusion The results of the present study showed that the quality and frequency of prenatal care are not at optimum level. Owing to importance of prenatal care in reducing the adverse consequences of pregnancy for mother and newborn, , the periodic monitoring of prenatal care in all regions of the Iran, especially deprived areas should be considered on the agenda of health policymakers and senior managers.