Health Related Quality of Life of Pregnant Women Attending Antenatal Clinic of a Tertiary Level Hospital

Abstract

Background: Pregnancy is a normal process in the female life cycle. The complexity of the changes caused by pregnancy restricted to not only the physical problems, but also psychological and social problems and impact on health related quality of life (HRQOL). The objectives of the study were to assess the HRQOL and find out the associations of HRQOL with socio-demographic and obstetric factors of pregnant women.
 Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study design was used among 106 pregnant women. Non-probability purposive sampling technique was used. Data were collected using semi-structured interview schedule that were analyzed by using descriptive statistical methods such as frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation and inferential statistics as chi-square test.
 Findings: The study showed that respondent’s level of QoL was highest on psychological domain (96.2%) and the lowest level (14.2%) was found in Physical domain. There was significant association of physical domain in Quality of Life with the age (p=0.003) while type of family, parity, mode of delivery and duration of pregnancy were not associated with physical, psychological and social domain at 0.005 level of significance.
 Conclusions: Based on the findings, this study concludes that the quality of life of pregnant women in general tends to be good. The physical domain is most affected rather than psychological and social domain. Level of QoL of the pregnant women in Physical domain is seems to be associated with age. Initiation of the especial counseling on the institution that address to physical domain must be to promote the quality of life in all domain of the pregnant women.
 Keywords: Pregnant women; Health-related quality of life; Antenatal clinic