Improving the uptake of preconception care and periconceptional folate supplementation: what do women think?

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Danielle Mazza¹  Anna Chapman¹ 

[1] Department of General Practice, Monash University, Building 1, 270 Ferntree Gully Road, 3168, Notting Hill, VIC, Australia;

关键词: Focus Group;    General Practitioner;    Preconception Care;    Public Health Campaign;    Periconceptional Folate Supplementation;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-10-786

 received in 2010-07-15, accepted in 2010-12-23,  发布年份 2010

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundDespite strong evidence of the benefits of preconception interventions to improve pregnancy outcomes, the delivery and uptake of preconception care in general and periconceptional folate supplementation in particular remains low. The aim of this study was to determine women's views of the barriers and enablers to the uptake of preconception care and periconceptional folate supplementation.MethodsFocus groups were undertaken in 2007 with 17 women of reproductive age (18-45 years). To identify key issues and themes within the data, focus groups were analysed using an inductive process of thematic analysis.ResultsMost women were unaware of the need to attend for preconception care and were surprised at the breadth of issues involved. Women also felt general practitioners (GPs) should be more proactive in promoting preconception care availability but acknowledged that they themselves had to be thinking about pregnancy or becoming pregnant to be receptive to it. Barriers to periconceptional folate supplementation included confusion about reasons for use, dose, duration, timing and efficacy of folate use. Enablers included the desire to do anything they could to ensure optimum pregnancy outcomes, and promotional material and letters of invitation from their GP to advise them of the availability and the need for preconception care.ConclusionA number of important barriers and enablers exist for women regarding the delivery and uptake of preconception care and periconceptional folate supplementation. It is essential that these patient perspectives are addressed in both the implementation of evidence based clinical practice guidelines and in the systematic design of an intervention to improve preconception care delivery.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© Mazza and Chapman; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.