Determinants of Women’s Knowledge about Different Aspects of Reproductive Health (Antenatal and Family Planning) in in the Outpatient Clinics in Al-Yarmouk Teaching Hospital

Background: In all aspects connected to the reproductive system and its activities and processes, reproductive health (RH) is a condition of total physical, mental, and social well-being (not just the absence of disease and infirmity). People with reproductive health have the ability to have a pleasant and safe sex life, as well as the ability to reproduce and the freedom to choose if, when, and how frequently to do so.

Subjects and Methods: The study was carried out in the outpatient clinics in Al-Yarmouk teaching hospital for a period of 5 months extending from the first of January 2019 to the end of May 2020. A systematic random sampling method was used. All married and unmarried women (No.=400) in the reproductive age group (15 -50 years) consulting the clinics during the study were eligible for inclusion in the study sample, Database structured statistical analysis was done using SPSS V13. The statistical significance of association between two categorist variables was assisted by the chi-square test (X2 ). P-value <0.05 level of significance was considered statistically significant.

Results: The range of age of studied women was 15 years to 50 years with a mean of 33.5± 9.6 years, the majority of them (33.3%) were aged 40-49 years. about (57%) were housewives, 5.7% were students and 37.3% were working. about 11.2% of them were illiterate, and 36.5% with higher education, as well as (77.3%) were married, regarding married women 42.1% of them had married at age less than 19 years, 38.2% had married at 20-22 years. The majority of the studied women 59.2% regarded the suitable age for marriage as between 18 -22 years, A significant association between the age and personal opinion about the suitable age for marriage was noticed (p <0.001). The educational level had a significant association with a personal opinion about suitable age for marriage (p<0.001). also, 40.3% of these women had heard about RH (as a term), 92.5 had heard about the premarital examination, 70.5% had heard about FP, and about 98.2% of studied women had good knowledge about the necessity of vaccines for pregnant women. the occupation and educational level were significantly associated with knowledge (hearing) about FP (p<0.001) and no significant association with marital status.

Conclusions: Women of the study had (poor knowledge about the concept of RH), but a favorable knowledge regarding different aspects of RH which includes appropriate age of marriage, antenatal care, breastfeeding, place of delivery, and birth spacing. so Most of the interviewed women had heard about FP and the majority of them knew that contraceptive pills and IUCD are the contraceptive methods available in Iraq more than other methods as well as the main reasons given by women for using CC methods were, the economic cause and having enough family (children) while the main reason for not using CC was the religious cause.