The Relations between Health Perception and Self-care Behaviors among Pregnant Women in Nakae District, Nakhonphanom Province

Abstract

This descriptive research aimed to study health perception factors associated with self-care behaviors among pregnant women in Nakae district, Nakhonphanom province. Population was 150 newly pregnant women have been 20 weeks’ gestational age or more than, registered at Pregnant care at Nakae hospital, in fiscal year 2017, and sample size calculating used Daniel formula for 120 cases, and systematic random sampling was determined. Data collected by questionnaire which be used to examine content validity and reliability test by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient about 0.80. An association analysis used Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient. The result showed that health perception factors including, perceived risk, perceived severity, perceived benefits, and perceived barriers had mean score with high level (=2.66, S.D.=0.47). Moreover, self-care behaviors among pregnant women including, antenatal care more than an equal 12 weeks, pregnancy, nutrition for pregnant women, exercise, stress management had mean score with high level (=2.56, S.D.=0.49). An association analyzed reported that health perception factors was associated with self-care behaviors among pregnant women in Nakae district, Nakhonphanom province with statistic significant (r=0.397, p-value<0.001). Considering, health perception factors, reported perceived severity, perceived risk, perceived benefits and perceived barrier were positive association with statistic significant (r=0.289, p-value=0.001, r=0.288, p-value=0.001, r=0.179, p-value=0.05, r=0.262, p-value=0.004, respectively).