USE OF PRENATAL CLINICS BY PREGNANT WOMEN IN THAILAND.
Contributors: Columbia University. Teachers College.
Published: 1985
Number of pages: 212
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.
Description: With prevention becoming an increasingly important issue in health care in Thailand, the search for explanations of preventive behavior assumes increasing importance.

Generally, the most widely used explanation of preventive behavior in health care is a set of beliefs and other subjective characteristics collectively known as the Health Belief Model. The components include beliefs in personal vulnerability to the disease, the efficacy of the behavior in preventing the disease, perceptions of the relative barriers to preventive behavior, and of cues that trigger the behavior. This model has been used in other studies, in part or in its entirety, to examine a variety of preventive behaviors. This dissertation utilized the entire model, with one addition which was the general health motivation.

The purposes of this study were to explore the reasons why mothers made use of, or did not make use of, available prenatal services and to explore mothers' perceptions of these services. The research questions were: (1) Do the demographic characteristics of mothers who made use of available prenatal services differ from those who did not make use of them? (2) Did mothers who made use of available prenatal services differ in six health beliefs from those who did not make use of them? (3) What demographic characteristics and health beliefs significantly accounted for use of available prenatal services?.

A total of 160 postnatal mothers who were hospitalized at eight randomly selected hospitals participated in this study. Eighty mothers used prenatal services for this pregnancy and the other eighty mothers did not use such services. A personal data form was used to collect information concerning selected personal characteristics. The health belief inventory was used to measure the six dimensions of the health belief construct.

The main findings from this study indicated that the majority of mothers who used prenatal services were married and had fewer pregnancies and fewer children than those who did not use the services.

Mothers who used prenatal services had high perceptions in five dimensions of health beliefs and lower perceptions in one dimension.

Five variables contributed significantly to effective prediction of the use of available prenatal services.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-09, Section: B, page: 3004.

Thesis (ED.D.)--COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY TEACHERS COLLEGE, 1985.

School code: 0055.