An Investigation of the Relationship between Health Literacy Levels of Pregnant Women and Their Perceptions of Traumatic Childbirth

ABSTRACT

The researchers aimed to investigate the relationship between the health literacy levels of pregnant women and their perceptions of traumatic childbirth. The sample consisted of 384 pregnant women. The data were collected using the ‘Pregnancy Information Form”, the “Health Literacy–32 Scale,” and the “Traumatic Birth Perception Scale.” Health literacy levels of pregnant women were found to be inadequate (44%) and limited (43.5%). 56.8% of pregnant women had moderate, and 27.1% had a high perception of traumatic birth. A negative correlation was determined between the total score and sub-dimensions of the Health Literacy Scale of pregnant women (i.e. access to health information, understanding health information, protection from diseases, and health promotion) and their perceptions of traumatic birth (p < .001).

KEYWORDS:

• Pregnancy
• health literacy
• traumatic birth perception
• health information
• health promotion

Acknowledgments

This study is master thesis and was presented as an oral presentation at 4^th International Pregnancy, Birth and Postpartum Congress to be held in Bolu, Turkey, on 20–23 February 2020. We would like to thank all the pregnant women who participated to our research

Author contributions

SA, TYT: Study conception, TYT: Data collection, SA, TYT: Study design, SA, TYT: Data analysis, drafting the manuscript, SA, TYT: Critical revisions for intellectual content, supervision.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.