Antenatal care expectation levels of pregnancy and affecting factors

Objektive: Pregnancy follow-up is a comprehensive care process that starts with the planning of pregnancy, aims to continue in a healthy way and deliver without any problems, and provides the necessary medical, psychological and social support to the pregnant woman with correct and rational practices. According to the Antenatal Care Management Guide of the Ministry of Health, it is performed by family physicians with four follow-ups. In these follow-ups, personal information and information about current pregnancy, as well as past medical and obstetric history are taken. Training and consultancy services are also provided while physical examination and necessary vaccinations are applied. During pregnancy, each pregnant woman's perception of this process, perspective and degree of anxiety may be different, and the care and follow-up she needs may also differ. Meeting the expectations of pregnant women is a motivating factor for them to request and continue antenatal service. For this reason, it is aimed to contribute to the improvement of health services by determining the care expectations from family physicians. Method: The study, which was planned as a cross-sectional descriptive study, was carried out with 196 pregnant women who applied to primary care in the central districts of İzmir. As a data collection tool, pregnant women were evaluated with an introductory information form, which included their sociodemographic, clinical and obstetric histories. Antenatal Care Expectation Scale and the part of the Prenatal Care Satisfaction and Patient Expectations Scale measuring patient expectations was applied. Results: While the average age of the pregnant women was 27.6±, 53.1% of them had high school or higher education, 77.6% of the pregnant women were not working actively. Pregnancy follow-ups were carried out in family health centers and state/university hospitals in 43.9%, and in FHCs and private hospitals in 35.2%. 12.2% of the participants had previously received training on the pregnancy period and 34.2% of the participants used at least two different sources such as health personnel and internet, TV and books as information sources. According to the applied scales, it was determined that the expectation levels of the pregnant women from the prenatal care were high. The scores obtained from the Antenatal Care Expectation scale showed that the expectation is high in pregnant women who are young, work actively during their pregnancy, have a high income, experience their first pregnancy and have never attended a pregnant school before. The scores obtained from the Prenatal Patient Expectations scale showed that the expectation was high in pregnant women with a profession and high income. Conclusion: It has been determined that the expectation levels of pregnant women registered to Family Health Centers from the antenatal care are high. Not only receiving regular prenatal care, but also informing pregnant women about pregnancy, delivery and postpartum processes in the antenatal period should be a routine part of pregnancy follow-up and should be expanded. For this purpose, first of all, attention of health personnel to this issue should be drawn and health personnel should be trained by organizing training courses for trainers. It should be ensured that pregnant information classes are established and regularly held in all health units where prenatal care is provided and opportunities are available.