Health Behaviour Of Pregnant Women Towards The Pregnancy School In The Greater Accra Regional Hospital

Abstract

Antenatal care is viewed as an important point of contact between health workers and women and an opportunity for provision of health education including how to detect pregnancy complications and development of a birth plan to ensure safe delivery at a health facility. Quality antenatal care and education given to pregnant women during antenatal visits could be used as one of the measures to curb maternal mortality since these somewhat preventable maternal deaths have hugely been attributed to the lack of quality contacts between the pregnant women and the professional caregiver. Owing to the fact that little has been done over the years on the health behaviour of pregnant women towards the pregnancy school, the study therefore explored the health behaviour of pregnant women towards the pregnancy school in the Greater Accra Regional Hospital using the theory of Information Motivation-Behavioural-Skill model to guide the research. A qualitative explorative approach was employed. Data were collected from Greater Accra Regional hospital using a purposive sampling method. Fourteen (14) participants who consisted of three (3) pregnant and eleven (11) postpartum women who consented to participate in the study were interviewed face to face using a semi structured interview guide which lasted for 30-45minutes. Data were analysed thematically. Four (4) main themes and eighteen (18) subthemes were formulated from the constructs of the IMB model and the objectives of the study. The results of the study emphasized that, the participants found the information given at the classes to be very useful and had concerns with the time frame of the classes. The findings suggest that although the pregnancy school is a good initiative all stakeholders should support in order to improve it. Future research should focus on the information needs of the husbands and partners attending pregnancy schools.