1Assistant Professor, Smt Kashibai Navale Medical College & General Hospital, Narhe, Pune
2Associate Professor (Retired), Topiwala National Medical College & BYL Nair Ch Hospital, Mumbai
*Corresponding Author: Email: amrita.d82@gmail.com
Online published on 13 May, 2015.
Anaemia is a global health problem primarily affecting pregnant women and children. It is found that though there are various programs organized to prevent anaemia the prevalence of anaemia has still not reduced. There are various factors which contribute to anaemia in pregnancy. The role of health education in compliance to oral iron therapy has still not been thoroughly studied. Therefore this study was undertaken
To study socio demographic factors contributing to compliance oral iron therapy
To study the reasons for noncompliance among the pregnant women
It is an epidemiological interventional study which was conducted at Cheetah Camp Maternity Hospital. A total of 386 pregnant women, divided in two groups of 193 each (interventional and control) in the second trimester were included in the study. Two health education sessions were conducted. Compliance to oral iron therapy was recorded twice, once before initiation and second at the end of health education session.
In this study it was found that age of the pregnant women, occupation, age of first pregnancy and per capita income did not have any significant role to play in compliance to oral iron therapy for both the follow up visits. It is found that education plays an important role in compliance to oral iron therapy during the first follow up visit. The most common reason for noncompliance during both the visits was non availability of the drugs and the patients forgetting to take the iron tablets
Health education is an effective tool to improve compliance to oral iron therapy.
Pregnant women, compliance, health education, oral iron therapy
