[Study on maternal health care status to agricultural and nomadic counties in Tibet Autonomous Region of China].
OBJECTIVE
To understand the current situation of maternal health care and the association between maternal health care and relevant factors.


METHODS
According to a cross sectional study design, 1512 mothers having children under 3 years old were drawn under stratified random sampling method and interviewed at their households in 15 counties, Tibet Autonomous Region of China.


RESULTS
77.6% of the pregnant women received at least one antenatal checkup with an average of 3.89 times while the rate of antenatal checkup over 5 times was 26.3%. The hospital delivery rate was 40.4% in this area. 83.9% of the women received education under the health care program during pregnancy and 66.2% of them were visited by health workers after delivery. Major factors of the antenatal checkups would include the resource of income, living in nomadic area, personal sanitation, antenatal health care education, mobilization of delivery at hospital, knowledge of antenatal health care etc.


CONCLUSIONS
There had been great improvement in women's health care in this area as compared with the status in 1999, but the frequency of receiving antenatal checkup was still not enough and the rate of hospital delivery was also low as compared with 46 counties in western areas of China. Poor knowledge of health care during pregnancy seemed to be the major factor that limited the utilization of antenatal health care. Knowledge on health and common sense of health care should be disseminated to improve the antenatal care and to enhance the hospital delivery rate.
Li
Qiang
Q
School of Medicine, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, China.
Yan
Hong
H
Wang
Quan-li
QL
Kang
Yi-jun
YJ
Dang
Shao-nong
SN
D000383:Agriculture; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006266:Health Education / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D054625:Healthcare Disparities; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008427:Maternal Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011247:Pregnancy; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D018609:Tibet; D014171:Transients and Migrants