Identification of Facilitators and Barriers of Health Promoting Behaviours among Antenatal Mothers

Health promoting behaviours are the key factors which assist the antenatal mothers to maintain the health and well-being, to prevent the risk of complications and to achieve a positive birth outcome.

1) assess the health promoting behaviors of antenatal mothers.2) identify the facilitators and barriers of health promoting behaviors among antenatal mothers.3) find the association and correlation between facilitators and barriers with health promoting behaviors.

Quantitative approach with descriptive survey design was used for the study. It was conducted among 60 antenatal mothers attending Obstetric unit, AIMS, Kochi who were selected by convenience. Analysis was done by using both descriptive and inferential statistics.

The findings of the study showed that 62% of the antenatal mothers had good, 28% had average and 3% had poor Health promoting behaviours with the mean score of 100 ± 13.83 (maximum score 113. 83). Among the specific components of Health promoting behaviours, the antenatal mothers had a better score in the areas of health responsibility (48, 80%), stress management and spiritual growth (47, 78%) and interpersonal relationship (35, 58%) and scored less in nutrition (34, 56%) and physical activity and rest (41, 68%). There is a significant association between Facilitators and Barriers and Health (χ²₍₂₎= 11.727), a positive linear correlation between facilitators and Health promoting behaviours (r=0.695) and negative linear correlation between barriers and Health promoting behaviours (r=-0.695).

The findings of the present study shows that majority of the antenatal mothers had good health promoting behaviours and it was influenced by facilitators and barriers. Through the identification of facilitators and barriers, the nurses and other health care providers can focus on the barriers to change them into facilitators and also to improve the facilitators to the maximum extent.