The effect of prenatal care, education and socioeconomic status on obstetric outcome in Alwahda Teaching Hospital, 2002-2003

Abstract EN

condition and the interaction of education with each of these variables upon obstetric outcomes.

Data were collected and analyzed using computer facilities (Epi info 3.3).

We explore the effect of each variable then stratified by education, looking for the interaction between them upon the outcomes and stating 95 % as the level of significance (P < 0.05).

The Obstetric outcome was good in 83.3 %, for PNC users compared to 70.7 % for nonusers.

Illiterate-nonusers of PNC were the most prone subset to bad pregnancy outcome (35.1%) rather than illiterate-users (23.2 %), literate-nonusers (22.6 %) and literates users (14.5 %) of PNC services.

There are no significant differences in the obstetric outcomes according to the number of PNC-visits and the time of booking, but together with the interaction of education the outcome is better among literate late bookers (P = 0.0025), and those with less PNC visits (P = 0.026), compared with illiterate counterparts..

Poor pregnant women have had more bad outcomes (21.1 %) than well-to-do ones (11.4 %) and more worse was the outcome in illiterate-poor patient compared to literate-poor and to both illiterates and literates well-to-do fellows.