Health and Barriers ro Prenatal Care Access

Background: Health is an indicator of mortality, and it can be presumed for maternal health outcomes. Guided insight into how healthcare satisfaction and other barriers impact self-rated health can better serve the maternal population to reduce barriers. Purpose: To explore the association between barriers and satisfaction of prenatal care and link to perceived health status. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 239 prenatal care patients at Hamilton Community Health Network. In 2017 a valid and reliable questionnaire collected demographic information and other prenatal care factors. Collected data sets were analyzed in SPSS version 24 software. Descriptive statistics and chi-squares were utilized. Of 239 mothers, the mean age was 25.91 (SD= 4.89), most participants were African American (64%), single/never married (64%), and had at least high school education (39%). A vast majority of the sample was on Medicare (92%) and obese (56%) with the mean BMI at 32.27. Results: There was an association between satisfaction of prenatal care and the barriers of negative health care experiences (p=.03), inconvenient office times (p=.03), and perceived practitioner respect (p=.03). The relationship between prenatal care satisfaction and self-rated health was not statistically significant (p = .97). The barrier variables were significantly interrelated with each other. Implications: Health care systems and health care providers must reduce barriers, increase the satisfaction of healthcare to achieve healthy pregnancy practices and maternal health outcomes.Master of Public HealthPublic HeatlhUniversity of Michigan-Flinthttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/149111/1/miller2018.pd