Meeting paper
PCOGS paper
Knowledge and attitudes regarding preconception care in a predominantly low-income Mexican American population

Presented at the 75th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Coast Obstetrical and Gynecological Society, Victoria, BC, Canada, Oct. 15-19, 2008.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajog.2009.02.036Get rights and content

Objective

The objective of the study was to determine knowledge and attitudes regarding preconception care in a low-income Mexican American population.

Study Design

This was a cross-sectional survey of 305 reproductive-age women at an urban public hospital.

Results

The sample was mostly Hispanic (88%) and pregnant (68%); 35% had not completed high school. Eighty-nine percent agreed that improving preconception health benefits pregnancy. Seventy-seven percent expressed some interest in preconception health care with the obstetrics gynecology office at the preferred location. The average knowledge of preconception care score was 76% (higher score more favorable). Areas of higher knowledge included the effects on pregnancy of folic acid; alcohol use; substance use; and verbal, physical, and sexual abuse; lower knowledge was found for the effects of cat litter and fish products.

Conclusion

There was interest in preconception education and agreement that preconception health has a positive effect on pregnancy. Fewer respondents agreed that it had a good effect than a suburban sample in the same region (89% vs 98%).

Section snippets

Materials and Methods

This study was a cross-sectional survey of a convenience sample of female patients aged 18-45 years who presented for an appointment at the Women's Care Clinic at the Maricopa Medical Center during the winter and spring of 2008. Maricopa Medical Center is a public hospital in Phoenix, AZ, which serves the poor and indigent population of Phoenix and the surrounding area. Prisoners and women who had undergone surgical procedures for permanent sterilization were excluded.

The survey was adapted

Results

The majority of the 305 enrolled subjects were 35 years old or younger (84%), mostly Hispanic (88%), with low levels of education (75% high school education or less) and low levels of acculturation (Table 1). This is consistent with a clinic serving the poor and uninsured in our region of the United States. Also consistent with this finding are the low levels of home or automobile ownership.

The level of economic hardship was near the midpoint for both scales (Table 1). Consistent with a

Comment

Our study of a predominantly low-income, Mexican American population found levels of interest in preconception health education similar to those of a higher economic status population in the same region. Levels of knowledge were high overall but lower than those in the more affluent population. Given that many of the items related to pregnancy and that most of our subjects were pregnant, this was a somewhat disappointing finding. When predictors of knowledge were analyzed, the multivariate

References (20)

There are more references available in the full text version of this article.

Cited by (40)

  • Preconception health behaviours: A scoping review

    2017, Preventive Medicine
    Citation Excerpt :

    There is a dearth of research examining intentions to engage in specific PCH behaviours. While some studies broadly examined intentions to seek preconception care or counseling (e.g., Coonrod et al., 2009; Frey et al., 2012; Temel et al., 2013; Temel et al., 2015) or as the target of an intervention (see Table 5a), no published studies since 2010 examined any specific behavioural intentions. The goal of this scoping review was to determine the extent to which specific PCH behaviours have been examined in recent research on PCH knowledge, behaviours, and behavioural intentions, as well as to identify gaps in the literature.

View all citing articles on Scopus

Reprints not available from the authors.

Cite this article as: Coonrod DV, Bruce NC, Malcolm TD, et al. Knowledge and attitudes regarding preconception care in a predominantly low-income Mexican American population. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2009;200:686.e1-686.e7.

View full text