Mazza and Chapman BMC Public Health 2010, 10:786 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/10/786 and facilitate the provision of preconception care deliv- ery and uptake [18]. An important finding in our study is the way women perceived the role of the GP with regards to prevention. Lower SES and rural women were reluctant to use GPs time for preventive activity that they perceived as only involving counselling, feeling that they would be depriv- ing those in need of more urgent medical care. Higher SES women on the other hand felt that preconception care was not in the remit of practice or skills of a GP and turned to alternative health professionals such as naturopaths. We suggest that these findings might be relevant to the implementation of other forms of pre- vention, and that patient perceptions of the role of GPs in prevention requires further exploration. Bille and Anderson (2009) suggest that preconception counselling should be part of a scheduled preventive health program, acknowledging that couples would need to seek out and attend such programs [5]. In contrast, our study suggests women need to be receptive to pre- conception care in order to access it and that they would like to have it promoted to them by their GP and by other means such as letters. Whilst this study highlights the perspectives of women of reproductive age, several limitations exist. Firstly, findings of this study are limited in generalisability, given the small sample size and the specific geographic location of focus groups. Women who participated in this study may not be representative of the population sampled and different perspectives may exist for groups of women not specifically targeted in this study i.e. teen- agers, single women, middle income women, and women with co-morbidities or substance addiction. Furthermore, perspectives of women also may be differ- ent in areas where active policy and public health cam- paigns exist that specifically address preconception care and periconceptional folate supplementation. Secondly, as periconceptional folate supplementation is one aspect of preconception care, the findings in relation to it are somewhat lessened as women didn’t fully appreciate preconception care in general. Conclusion Having identified the views of women and the fact that multiple barriers and enablers to the uptake of precon- ception care and periconceptional folate supplementation exist, we believe that further research is needed to iden- tify which of these are the most important and amenable to change. Prior to developing an intervention to improve preconception care, it will also be important to; deter- mine the views of GPs and other health professionals about the barriers they experience to preconception care delivery and how these relate to what women describe, and to understand the theoretical basis involved in Page 5 of 6 changing health professionals behaviour. For the delivery and uptake of preconception care to improve, it essential that there is a demand from both parties. This more rig- orous approach to designing interventions which better target the barriers to practice change may result in more success in implementing preconception care [19-21]. Acknowledgements We thank members of the advisory committee for this project for their input: Professors Shane Thomas & Sally Green, Associate Professor Jane Halliday, Dr Bronwyn Harvey, and Ms Elizabeth Logan and Ms Danielle Rigoni for their advice. Authors’ contributions DM developed the concept and design of the study, and was responsible for data acquisition. DM and AC analysed the data, interpreted the results, drafted the manuscript, and approved the final manuscript. DM is the guarantor. Competing interests The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Received: 15 July 2010 Accepted: 23 December 2010 Published: 23 December 2010 References 1. Watson LF, Brown SJ, Davey MA: Use of periconceptional folic acid supplements in Victoria and New South Wales, Australia. Aust N Z J Public Health 2006, 30(1):42-49. 2. Marsack CR, Alsop CL, Kurinczuk JJ, Bower C: Pre-pregnancy counselling for the primary prevention of birth defects: rubella vaccination and folate intake. Med J Aust 1995, 162(8):403-406. 3. Conlin ML, MacLennan AH, Broadbent JL, Conlin ML, MacLennan AH, Broadbent JL: Inadequate compliance with periconceptional folic acid supplementation in South Australia. Aust N Z J Obstet Gynaecol 2006, 46(6):528-533. 4. 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