Assessment of Implementation of Pre-pregnancy care services in Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia

INTRODUCTION: Pre-pregnancy care (PPC) is an established health care program for women of reproductive age that has been widely implemented globally. The implementation of these services varies between countries based on the guidelines advocated. Thus, a standard level of assessment on measuring the performance of the service was difficult. This study aimed to measure the status of implementation PPC services among health workers using the transtheoretical model framework.

METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among 445 healthcare workers using a validated questionnaire based on local PPC guideline published by the Ministry of Health Malaysia (MOH).

RESULTS: The results showed that many respondents were in the implementation action stage (57%), followed by the maintenance stage (20%), preparation stage (19%), contemplation stage (4%) and pre-contemplation stage (<1%). Further categorisation showed that only 43% of the respondents are successfully implementing PPC according to the standard of MOH. Clinics lead by the Family Medicine Specialist (Adjusted Odds Ratio, AOR 2.845; 95% Confidence Interval, 95%CI: 1.839, 4.40), daily usage of teleprimary care system (TPC) in the clinic (AOR 1.563; 95%CI: 1.019, 2.397), and attended TPC training (AOR 3.358; 95%CI: 2.221, 5.075) were significantly determining the success of PPC implementation.

CONCLUSION: The emphasis on motivation and rewards among the healthcare workers, provision of good internet connection at health clinics and developing a comprehensive model of PPC training targeting the specific healthcare workers are mandatory to enhance the PPC services implementation.