INVESTIGATING THE QUALITY AND ADEQUACY OF PRE-PREGNANCY CARE FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF WOMEN REFERRING TO URMIA CITY HOSPITALS IN 2021

Background & Aim: One of the programs of the health system in Iran is providing services related to pregnancy, which is provided in three areas of pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, and postpartum care. Quality and quantity assessment shows how health care programs are implemented and identifies the inadequacies of the programs to solve the main problems. Therefore, the present study was conducted to investigate the quality and adequacy of pre-pregnancy care from the point of view of women referring to Urmia city hospitals. Material & Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 765 pregnant women referring to hospitals in Urmia city by Quota sampling method. The data collection tool included demographic and midwifery information as well as a researcher-made questionnaire about the quality and adequacy of pre-pregnancy care. The questionnaires were completed about 2-3 hours before the mother was discharged from the maternity ward. Data analysis was done with descriptive and inferential statistics by SPSS software version 16. Statistical significance was considered at p<0.05. Results: The mean and standard deviation of the age of women participating in the study was 27.0±4.9 years. Of all the participatrd women, 159 (20.78 percent) had received pre-pregnancy care. The mean and standard deviation of the number of pre-pregnancy cares received by all women participating in the study was 15.8 ± 3.7 cares. The minimum and maximum received cares were 8 and 23, respectively, and the mean number of received cares was 15 cares. The total quality score of pre-pregnancy service was 66.60 ± 11.20. The mean scores of those who refer to private centers for the dimensions of selection, communication, interaction, and total score of service quality were significantly higher than the average scores of those who refer to public centers (p<0.05). The mean and standard deviation of the pre-pregnancy customer quality score was 59.31±11.98. The results showed that the customer quality levels were similar between women referring to public and private centers and there was no significant difference between them (p=0.859). Conclusion: Despite the low coverage of pre pregnancy care, the adequacy of pre-pregnancy care was optimal, and there was no difference between private and public service providers. Considering the low quality of some aspects of pre-pregnancy care services in public compared to private centers, there is a need for planning and intervention to improve the quality of service delivery, especially in public centers.