مجله دانشکده بهداشت و انستیتو تحقیقات بهداشتی
سال سیزدهم شماره 3 (پیاپی 51، پاییز 1394)

Prenatal and neonatal care provides an opportunity for counseling, resulting in reduction of pregnancy-related and neonatal complications. It is expected that such care would result in promoting the health status of these vulnerable groups and improving the relevant indicators.

This was a cross-sectional survey including 668 mothers and 2-month-old children. Data were collected using questionnaires and structured interviews.

On the whole, 35.9%, 21.0% and 5.1% of the mothers reported, at least, one pregnancy, one complication, and one neonatal complication, respectively. Results of the logistic regression model showed that the odds ratio of reporting at least one of the pregnancy complications increased by more than double in women who had a medical history or a high-risk pregnancy, increase decreased by 63% in those who had continuous care during pregnancy, decreased by 40% in those who had received thorough prenatal care, and increased by 0.05% for every unit increase in age. The odds ratio of reporting at least one postpartum complication increased by 70% per unit of in the density of health workers. Moreover, the odds ratio of reporting at least one neonatal complication decreased by 48% in women who had received full neonatal care and by 50% per every unit of increase in the density of health workers.

The findings of this study show the important role of behvarzes (community health workers) in detecting postpartum and neonatal complications, as well as the importance of antenatal care and quality of antenatal care as regards detecting at-risk women and neonates and prevention of pregnancy and antenatal complications.

Currently there is no standardized and validated questionnaire for assessing the care of danger signs in children less than 5 years by the mothers based on behavioral patterns. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate psychometrically an instrument for assessment of the care of danger signs in children less than 5 years old by the mothers based on the Health Belief Model.

This cross-sectional study was carried out on 350 mothers in the City of Arak, Iran. After reviewing the related literature, an instrument was designed and its content validity ratio (CVR), content validity index (CVI) and face validity were measured. To measure the reliability of the scales, the internal consistency method was used. Data analysis was done using the SPSS software.

The scores of the CVI and CVR of the 81 items were found to be 0.79 and 0.62, respectively, the items being classified into seven categories. Based on the Cronbach's alpha, the overall reliability was 0.86. The reliability of the questionnaire for checklists of performance was 0.99, followed by those of perceived benefits (0.90), severity (0.83), perceived barriers (0.68), knowledge (0.66), perceived susceptibility (0.65), self-efficacy (0.63), and cues to action (0.56).

The output of this psychometric process study is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring symptoms of risk behaviors in the care of vulnerable children based on the health belief model constructs, which can be used in health sciences research aiming at helping to protect the health of children.