Journal of North Khorasan

Abstract Background & Objectives: awareness of prenatal care and observing them is the most important factor for maintaining mother and fetus healthiness. Health literacy is an important and improvable factor in accessing health information, the mode of communication with health services providers and approaching to health care system. Hence the present study was carried out to determine health literacy in relation to prenatal care among pregnant women referring to health centers of Kerman, Iran. Methods: This descriptive- analytical study was carried out cross sectional in 2010. Research population, consisted of all pregnant women referring to health centers of Kerman, 220 pregnant women were selected according to a stratified sampling basis. A questionnaire developed by researchers after reliability and validity confirmation was applied for data collection. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi square test through SPSS. Findings: the results of the study indicate that 24 percent of studied women had good health literacy, 45% moderate health literacy and 31% weak health literacy. There was a significant relationship between health literacy and age, educational level, history of abortion and number of children (p≤0.05). Discussion and conclusion: This study indicated that the health literacy regarding prenatal care was at a moderate level among most of studied women. However thirty percent of studied subjects had weak prenatal care health literacy. Because of the importance of health literacy, it is necessary for national health authorities to develop more plans to improve health literacy and empowerment of this group.