Study on awareness regarding high risk factors of pregnancy among pregnant women

A 'high risk pregnancy' sounds daunting, but like every other issue, knowledge is the key for coping with and treating the pregnancy with complications. Hence, a descriptive study was carried out to assess the awareness regarding high risk factors of pregnancy among 150 pregnant women selected by convenience sampling technique, visiting antenatal OPD of a selected hospital of Ludhiana, Punjab. A structured questionnaire was used to assess the socio-demographic variables along with the level of awareness. It was found that more than one-third (34.7%) of pregnant women had below average level of awareness, one-third of women (33.3%) had average level of awareness, (30%) had good level of awareness and only (2%) had excellent level of awareness. The score of respondents was higher in the area of age & parity (80%) and least in the area of abnormal presentation (34.5%). Source of information, parity, number of live children and history of complications in previous pregnancy had statistically significant impact (p<0.05) on the level of awareness. The study concludes that the level of awareness regarding high risk factors of pregnancy was below average. Hence, dissemination of Information Education and Communication material was done to enhance the awareness.