Nursing practice: Nurses working in antenatal OPD, wards and community area can educate the mother regarding birth preparedness and enhance their knowledge and good knowledge promote better practices.
Nursing administration: Nursing Administration need to take initiative in developing birth preparedness programme (workshop, community-based programme) for providing education to the patients during OPD visit and hospital stay.
Nursing research: Nursing personnel should take initiative not only in conducting the research but also discussing the findings of research study among nurses and encourage them to implement the findings.
Recommendations
1. Quasi experimental study can be conducted to assess the effectiveness of self-structured health education on antenatal women/ health workers regarding birth preparedness.
2. A comparative study between urban and rural community can be done to assess the knowledge and attitude regarding birth preparedness.
3. The tool used for assessing birth preparedness can further be developed and field-tested for standardising it.
Conclusion
As maximum number of antenatal women had good knowledge and positive attitude regarding birth pre-paredness but still there is a need that knowledge should be provided to those women who lack knowledge regarding birth preparedness so that they can make an advance planning for childbirth and post-natal/ newborn period. The government officials and partners working in areas of maternal health should come up with strategies to improve birth preparedness at individual and community level.
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Author: Preety Narula
The author is Associate Professor, SPN College of Nursing, Mukerian, District Hoshiarpur (Punjab).