A STUDY TO ASSESS THE KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE REGARDING SPACING METHODS AMONG POSTNATAL MOTHERS ADMITTED IN MATERNITY WARDS OF SELECTED HOSPITALS IN VADODARA CITY

Abstract

Introduction;-Unintended pregnancy is still a major concern within the United States, Birth spacing is one of the major factors in order to reduce maternal and infant mortality rate. Although In our country, different governmental and non governmental agencies are working in this field to achieve that goal, a mother needs to understand more about birth spacing methods and their availability for productive future of nation.World health organization defined “Reproductive health as a state of physical, mental, and social well-being in all matters relating to the reproductive system at all stages of life. Reproductive health implies that people are able to have a satisfying and safe sex life and that they have the capability to reproduce and the freedom to decide if, when, and how often to do so. Implicit in this are the right of men and women to be informed and to have access to safe, effective, affordable, and acceptable methods of family planning of their choice, and the right to appropriate health-care services that enable women to safely go through pregnancy and childbirth.” Objectives: To find out the correlation between knowledge and attitude regarding spacing methods among postnatal mothers. Materials and methods: This study was conducted to assess the knowledge and attitude regarding spacing methods, Non-experimental descriptive research design was adopted to achieve the goal of the study by using instrument includes, Demographical data and knowledge questionnaires, or likert like scale followed to carried out a structured interview schedule among 60 postnatal mothers admitted in maternity wards of selected hospitals of Vadodara city ,The collected data was tabulated and analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: The findings of the study revealed that majority 26 (43.33%) of the postnatal mothers had moderate knowledge, 24(40.00%) had inadequate knowledge and only 10(16.67%) had adequate knowledge and the majority of 36 (60%) postnatal mothers have favourable attitude ,15(25%) mothers have unfavourable attittude and only 9 (15%) of them have neutral attittude towards spacing methods and additional findings of study shows that there is weak correlation between knowledge and attitude scores of postnatal mothers regarding spacing methods, is found +0.397. Conclusion:The study conclude that majority of mothers have moderate knowledge and favorable attitude regarding spacing methods and there is find weak correlation between knowledge and attitude of postnatal mothers regarding spacing methods , means attitudes is slightly vary according to the level of knowledge regarding spacing methods among  postnatal mothers .