GEBELERİN GENİTAL HİJYEN DAVRANIŞLARININ BELİRLENMESİ

DETERMINATION OF GENITAL HYGIENE BEHAVIORS OF PREGNANT WOMEN

Introduction: Providing genital hygiene is the most important step in the protection of women’s health and reproduction health. Vaginal infections that occur during pregnancy not only disturb the women but also harm the fetus when they proceed. It is known that personal hygiene habits play a crucial role in the control of many infection diseases. There is a need for good genital hygiene to avoid genital infections. Objective: It is to determine the genital hygiene behaviors of pregnant women and the influential factors. Methods: The population for the study included pregnant women who came to T.C. Izmir Ege Gynecology and Maternity Research and Teaching Hospital outpatient clinic between July 1 and October 1, 2007 The research sample consisted of 134 pregnant women chosen with a simple random sampling technique. Pregnant women with the minimum age of 18, who are primary school graduates as the lowest educational level, receiving no psychological treatment, without multiple pregnancy or complications throughout their pregnancy and willing to participate in the research, were included in the scope of the research. An “Individual Description Form” of 27 questions was used in order to determine the socio-demographic characteristics of pregnant women, and “Genital Hygiene Behavior Inventory” GHBI was used to determine the genital hygiene behaviors for data collection. Results: In accordance with the findings obtained, it was determined that the average age of pregnant women was 26.470±5.330, 41% were primary school graduates, 78.4 % had a job, 89.6 % had social security, 67.9 % lived as a nuclear family. Average score in which take from genital hygiene behaviors inventory of pregnant women was determined as 81.68 ± 11.79 at the end of this study. It is determined that education level, where they mostly live, income level, number of pregnancies, pregnancy planning status, to get information related to genital hygiene and information sources affect genital hygiene behaviors of pregnant women. Conclusion: In this study, average score of genital hygiene behaviors of pregnant women were found to be higher than studies made with non-pregnant women. Women during pregnancy due to prenatal care services are confronted more frequently with health care providers. It is thought that this situation help to develop correct genital hygiene behaviors of pregnant women