A Descriptive Study to Assess the Knowledge and Attitude on Maternal Care Among Spouses of Pregnant Women at a Selected Hospital in Chennai

Abstract

Antenatal care is important to identify women at risk of developing pregnancy complications. In India, husbands are the main decision makers in family. Their support can have positive impact on health care of women, which in turn depends on their knowledge regarding importance of antenatal care with this view, a descriptive design was adopted to assess the knowledge and attitude on maternal care among spouses of pregnant women at a selected hospital in Chennai. Purposive sampling technique was used to identify a 245 spouses of pregnant women .The instrument consist questioners to assess the background variables, knowledge of the spouses of the pregnant women on maternal care and attitude likert scale related to maternal care. Major findings: The study revealed that out of 245 subjects 38.4% of the spouses of pregnant women had adequate knowledge 57.6% of them had moderately adequate knowledge and very few (4.1%) of them had inadequate knowledge about maternal care. The study revealed that out of 245 subjects 80.8% had highly favourable attitude, 5.3% had favourable attitude and 13.9% had unfavourable attitude. The attitude means percentage score was 84%.There was a positive correlation between knowledge and attitude of spouse of pregnant women. There was a positive correlation between knowledge and attitude of spouse of pregnant women.The study showed a significant association between knowledge, education, occupation of the spouse of pregnant women. Conclusions: Majority of the spouses of pregnant women have poor knowledge regarding maternal care. Secondly majority of the spouses of pregnant women have favorable attitude towards maternal care. Consequent upon this, it was recommended that improved strategies hinged on enlightenment and orientation of men should be developed.