Gender Differences in Awareness of Preconception Care and Pregnancy

Dong Sook Cho; Eun Jung Kim; Eun Mi Jun

doi:10.4069/kjwhn.2013.19.4.219

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Cho, Kim, and Jun: Gender Differences in Awareness of Preconception Care and Pregnancy

Original Article

Korean Journal of Women Health Nursing 2013; 19(4): 219-229.

Published online: 31 December 2013

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4069/kjwhn.2013.19.4.219

Gender Differences in Awareness of Preconception Care and Pregnancy

Dong Sook Cho¹, Eun Jung Kim², Eun Mi Jun³

¹College of Nursing, Eulji University, Seongnam, Korea.

²Division of Nursing, College of Medicine, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Korea.

³Department of Nursing Science, Dong-Eui University, Busan, Korea.

Corresponding author: Jun, Eun Mi. Department of Nursing Science, Dong-Eui University, 176 Eomgwangno, Busanjin-gu, Busan 614-714, Korea. Tel: +82-51-890-1561, Fax: +82-51-890-2621, charminggold@hanmail.net, jem@deu.ac.kr

Received 28 August 2013 Revised 18 November 2013 Accepted 4 December 2013

(open-access):

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

This study was conducted to identify awareness levels in regard to preconception care and gender differences targeting single undergraduate students in their 20s.

Methods

The study participants were 867 single undergraduate students aged 20~29 (523 women, 344 men). This was a descriptive research, in which awareness levels of preconception care and pregnancy were identified the through questionnaire surveys.

Results

Gender differences in the awareness of reproductive care before conception were found. Generally, women's awareness of issues related to preconception care and pregnancy was higher than that of men. Women recognized risk factors in pregnancy (χ²=22.85, p<.001) and positive behaviors (χ²=10.91, p = .012) better than men. Women's awareness of preconception care was significantly higher than that of men (t=8.37, p<.001). The awareness levels of the students who completed a reproduction related class (t=3.16, p = .002) and the students who knew about folic acid (t=-10.78, p<.001) in preconception care were statistically significantly higher.

Conclusion

The results indicate that the ways to educate and alert students to major risk factors before pregnancy and other reproductive care content before conception is to provide education both single women and single men.

Keywords: Gender, Awareness, Preconception care, Pregnancy

Figures and Tables

Table 1

Distribution of Demographic Characteristics of the Participants (N=867)

Table 2

Compared the Difference of Awareness related to Preconception Health and Pregnancy with Gender, Attended Class, Folic Acid Aware (N=867)

Table 3

Self-perceived Awareness of Dangerous and Positive Factors related to Fetus and Pregnancy

Table 4

High and Middle Level Awareness of Issues Related to Preconception Health and Pregnancy

Table 5

Low Level Awareness of Issues related to Preconception Health and Pregnancy

Table 6

Awareness of Folic acid Related to Pregnancy

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