Health problems during pregnancy and their relationship with quality of life in the city of Aydın.

The present cross-sectional study was conducted in order to investigate the health problems during pregnancy and the relationship between these problems and quality of life in the city of Aydın. Between November 2009 and May 2010, 607 pregnant women in the third trimester, who were living in the urban region of Aydın City Center, determined by non-probability sampling method, were included in the study.The data of the study were obtained through a questionnaire investigating the independent study variables and the descriptive characteristics of the pregnant women, the risk assessment form of the Ministry of Health, the Beck Depression Inventory as well as the Short Form (SF)-36 quality of life scale. Descriptive statistics, variance analysis, t-test, Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal Wallis test, correlation and multiple regression analysis were used for the evaluation of data.The mean age of the pregnant women was 27.42±5.04. 99.8% of the pregnant women reported a health problem during their pregnancies. The most frequent problem was polyuria (81.0%), followed by nausea-vomiting (66.1), heartburn (58.4%) and back pain (53.7%). Of the pregnant women, 16.1% were at high risk of depression, 14.8% were hospitalized due to health problems, 84,8% had at least one risk factor, 13.8% had sexual problems prior to pregnancy, and 80.1% experienced changes in sexual life during pregnancy.In multiple regression analysis, a negative correlation was determined between the quality of life of pregnant women and being at high risk of depression, being hospitalized due to health problems during pregnancy, having a high number of risk factors, having sexual problems prior to pregnancy and experiencing changes in sexual life during pregnancy.According to these results, consideration of the factors affecting the quality of life of pregnant women during planning and presentation of the prenatal care services, may contribute to the improvement of mother-and-child health.Key words: Health problems, pregnancy, prenatal care, quality of life.