Knowledge about obstetric danger signs among pregnant women attending antenatal clinic in a tertiary care hospital of Delhi: a cross sectional study

Abstract

Background: According to UNICEF, globally 800 million women die due to preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth; 20% of which occur in India. It is therefore imperative to understand the level of knowledge about danger signs among pregnant women to augment timely redressal of preventive obstetric causes of mortality.Methods: A hospital based, cross sectional study was conducted at the ANC Clinic in Safdarjung Hospital, New Delhi from 2nd July to 27th July 2018. Convenient sampling was used to identify and interview 354 pregnant women, using a semi structured questionnaire. Data was entered and analysed with SPSSv21. Results were presented as frequencies and proportions. Chi square was used to test for association between qualitative variables, and p-value less than 0.05 was considered significant.Results: 48.3%, 35.6%, and 40.1% of pregnant women had knowledge about danger signs during pregnancy, labour and postpartum respectively. Majority of the women had knowledge about abdominal pain (58.4%) and severe fatigue (80.7%) as danger signs of pregnancy, while bleeding (82.5%) was the most common response as danger sign of labour. More than half had knowledge about heavy bleeding (59.9%) as danger sign of postpartum. The women lacked awareness about Convulsions (92.9%) as danger signs of pregnancy and labour, as well as smelly vaginal discharge (79.6%) in postpartum.Conclusions: Knowledge of obstetric danger signs among pregnant women is still lower. It needs further awareness as it can help in early diagnosis and referral of patients thus reducing maternal mortality and morbidity.

Knowledge of danger signs during pregnancy and health seeking behaviours among women attending antenatal care; the case of two referral hospitals in Southwest Cameroon

“…This nding is similar to studies carried out by Morhason-Bella et al in Nigeria [27] , Hailu et al in Ethiopia [7] and Kabakyenga et al in Uganda [28] where the most commonly mention danger signs were per vagina bleeding, abdominal pain severe headache/blurred vision and fever. However, this nding is contrary to ndings by Kumar A et al in Delhi, India [26] were the commonly mentioned pregnancy danger sign was abdominal pain followed by per vaginal bleeding. The reason vaginal bleeding was commonly mentioned could possibly be because it is the most visible sign compared with other signs such as reduced foetal movement that need keen attention to notice.…”

“…A possible explanation could be because, these studies were community based and participants were women who gave birth one to two years prior to the survey, secondly majority of participants in our study 268(68%) had attended at least high school, compared to other studies where most of the participants had only secondary school education. However, our nding was low compared to studies carried out in Rural Madagascar [25] and Delhi, India [26]. This difference in results can be attributed to, rstly the different criteria used for assessing knowledge (a woman was considered to have good knowledge if she spontaneously mentioned at least two/one danger sign respectively, whereas in our study good knowledge was considered when a participant spontaneously mentioned at least four danger signs.…”

Pregnancy danger signs: Knowledge and health-seeking behavior among reproductive age women in southwest Ethiopia

“…17,23 It was lower than some studies conducted in Ethiopia, 26,30,31 Uganda, 37 Madagascar, 28 and India. 38,39 But it was higher than some studies conducted in Ethiopia, 2,[32][33][34]40 Tanzania, 13 and Kenya. 10 The variation observed compared to other studies could be due to the differences in sample size, the operational definition used (most studies used two, some used three and others used four, and so on criteria to say knowledgeable about PDSs), and methodology in general.…”

Knowledge regarding obstetric danger signs among mother attending antenatal clinic at Scheer Memorial Adventist Hospital, Banepa, Kavre

“…4 Globally 800 million women die due to preventable causes related to pregnancy and childbirth; 20% of which occur in India. 5 It was reported that in India around 44,000 women die due to pregnancy and childbirth related complications. The high number of maternal deaths in some areas of the world reflects inequities in access to health services, rampant illiteracy, ignorance and gender inequality.…”

“…The risk of maternal mortality is highest for adolescent girls under 15 years of age. 5 The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) for Nepal is 239 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2016. Nepal has committed to doing its part to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 3.1 of reducing the global MMR to less than 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births by 2030.…”