The Relationship Between Empowerment and Social Support Among Pregnant Afghan Women: A Cross-sectional Study in Kabul City, Afghanistan

Background and Purpose: Afghanistan experiences a significant maternal mortality rate, which could be mitigated through the empowerment of women and increased social support. This study aimed to explore the relationship between empowerment and social support among pregnant women seeking care at governmental hospitals in Kabul City, Afghanistan. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 4 governmental hospitals in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2020. Through a convenient sampling, 428 pregnant women were recruited. The Kameda empowerment (Cronbach α=0.89) was used to measure woman empowerment. Sarason social support questionnaires with two subscales, including social support number (Cronbach α=0.95) and social support satisfaction (Cronbach α=0.96), were used to collect the study data. Then, the obtained data were analyzed using SPSS software, version 16, and the Pearson correlation test determined the association between variables at the significance level of P