The Health Literacy of Pregnant Women referring to Health Centers in Bushehr

Improving the health literacy of pregnant women facilitates their understanding of health information before, during, and after pregnancy and has a direct impact on the health of the child during the years development. Therefore, due to the importance of health literacy for pregnant women, this study was conducted to determine health literacy of pregnant women referring to health centers in Bushehr.

This study was an analytical-survey research. The population was 306 pregnant women referring to health centers in Bushehr who were selected by randomized clustering. Data were collected using health literacy questionnaire, demographic, medical, and midwifery checklist. Chi-square and Fisher test were used to analyze the data.

Findings revealed that 51% of pregnant women had inadequate health literacy, 25% had border health literacy, and 24% had adequate health literacy. According to the results, there was a significant relationship between the women's education (P=0.041)/ job (P=0.005), their husband's education (P=0.034)/ job (P=0.010), the pregnancy frequency (P=0.05), and health literacy. Furthermore, women who had experienced the second pregnancy or more had a higher health literacy compared with primiparous women (=18%).

The results showed that majority of the pregnant women referring to health centers had a low health literacy. It could be recommended to educate health literacy skills and empowerment of pregnant mothers in different groups through content materials in simple language and provide oral and visual training to pregnant women.