Explanation of women's and family health care personnel's perception of the barriers of pre-pregnancy care coverage: a qualitative study

Pre-pregnancy care is a set of interventions through prevention and treatment to identify and modify biomedical, behavioral and social hazards. The current study aimed to explain ideas of women about reproductive age and the personnel of family health centers about barriers of pre-pregnancy care coverage in the healthcare centers supervised by Iran University of Medical Sciences.
In this qualitative study, 32 mothers and the personnel of family health unit (experts of midwifery and family heath) working in health centers affiliated to Iran University of Medical Sciences were interviewed both individually and in group. A purposeful sampling was exploited. Data were gathered through interviews and focused on group discussion with open questions until data saturation was reached and data were analyzed using conventional content analysis approach and based on the Graneheim and Landman’s model (2004). Before each interview, mothers were informed regarding the aim of research, interview style, freedom to leave the interview and the way interview content would be kept private.
After analyzing the data, the perceived obstacles of pre-pregnancy care coverage were achieved in three main formats including: Organizational obstacles, communicative obstacles and personal obstacles.
Thorough explanation participants’ experiences, structural, communicative and personal factors were shown to be effective on pregnancy care coverage in healthcare centers supervised by Iran University of Medical Sciences. Better quality services could be obtained by prioritizing and implementing proper interventions.