A Study to Assess Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of Antenatal Care among Antenatal Women Attending Outdoor in Tertiary Care Centre

Aim& objectives 1) To assess the knowledge, attitude and practices of antenatal care among women attending SZH OPD.2) To determine the association between the knowledge, attitude and practices of women attending OPD with selected demographic variable.3) To measure the co-relation between knowledge, attitude, practices and antenatal care.4) To measure the co-relation between antenatal care and maternal and fetal outcome. Material and methods It was hospital based descriptive case-control study on the antenatal women attending the outpatient clinics of SZH, department of obstetrics and gynaecology, Gandhi Medical College, Bhopal. Duration of study was of 12 months. All antenatal women attending the OPD was included out of which unbooked antenatal women were categorized as study group and antenatal women booked at SZH were taken as control group. Early pregnancy, abortion, widow and divorcee were excluded from study. Data were collected by pre-designed and pre-tested questionnaire and participants were followed and fetomaternal outcome was noted. The Chi-square test was used to compare variables. Results most of the respondents (52.7 %) belonged to 20-24 years of ageand most of them were hindus.72.4 % were resident of urban areas. Maximum women i. e 53.1 % were educated upto middle school out of them 70 % were booked.38.4 % of the women were of class V of modified prasads classification.70-79 % of women had correct knowledge regarding early registration, ANC check ups, immunization and requirement of proper diet and 70 % of them adequately utilizing antenatal services.70 % of women shows positive attitude towards ANC check-ups at SZH, antenatal follow up and laboratory examinations and shows positive relationship with booing status.88.9 % of subjects shows positive attitude for hospital delivery. only 51.1 % of antenatal women had adequate antenatal visits till date, 69.7 % took IFA adequately and 91.9 % received adequate immunization. Most of the women had normal vaginal delivery constituting 75.4 % of the booed patients though even in unbooked group most of them had vaginal delivery. Conclusion there is a need to target certain group of population such as rural, uneducated and economically backward and find the way through which the attendance of ANC Visits can be increased. Moreover strong political commitment, co-ordination between program implementing agencies, monitoring, evaluation and follow up of the programs will be needed.