We already know how important the adequate prenatal care is & it's positive effects to birth outcomes. In KOREA, nevertheless, the proportion of pregnant women who receives adequate prenatal care is still low. This study was performed to detect any obstacles in receiving adequate prenatal care. As many as 141 out of 257 women who gave birth at Puchun Sejong hospital from June to July 1990 were selected & paper-interviews with chart reviews were performed.
The results were as follows :
1. Mean age of 145 women was 27.3 years & 82(56.6%) of them were primipara & 63(43.4%) were multipara.
2. The mean number of prenatal visit was 8.1, and the numbers of women who received adequate prenatal care were 65(37.2%), intermediate prenatal care were 55(37.2%), and inadequate prenatal care were 25(17.2%).
3. Adequacy of prenatal care had no effect to birth outcomes.
4. Age group, economic status, educational level, type of health insurance, family structure, previous illness, illness during this pregnancy were not significantly related to adequacy of prenatal care.
5. In multiparous women, the proportion of inadequate prenatal care was higher than primiparas & it's difference was statistically significant.
6. The proportion of inadequate prenatal care was higher in women who had negative attitude to prenatal care than those who had positive attitude, & it's difference was statistically significant.
7. The majority(86.7%) of women who did not received adequate prenatal care said,"I didn't have to, because I had no problem".
We concluded that the education about the significance and the practical method of adequate prenatal care was very important, and it should be especially stressed to multiparas.
