• Association between Perceived Social support and Health Promoting behavior in Pregnant Women: A cross-sectional study
  • Azita Fathnezhad-Kazemi,1,* Armin Aslani,2 Sepideh hajian,3
    2. Student Research Committee, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz branch, Tabriz, Iran.
    3. Associate Professor, Department of Midwifery & Reproductive Health, Faculty of Nursing & Midwifery, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran


  • Introduction: Adopting health-promoting behaviors might be affected by a variety of factors. Evidence suggests that social support can improve health by Fulfilling physical and mental needs. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between Perceived Social Support and Health Promoting Behavior in Pregnant Women
  • Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted during the first six months of 2017 by a multistage cluster sampling with 360 pregnant women participants. Data were collected by self-reported demographic and midwifery questionnaire, health-promoting behaviors questionnaire (HPLPII) and perceived social support questionnaire (MSPSS). SPSS Ver. 21 was used for data analysis. Association was evaluated by ANOVA tests and Pearson's correlation coefficient was used for correlation analysis
  • Results: The mean (SD) of health-promoting behaviors was 135.21(4.22). amongst the different dimensions of health-promoting behaviors highest mean was detected in Spiritual growth 26.84(4.90) and nutrition 26.17(4.22) respectively and lowest scores were detected in sub-domains of stress management 19.80(3.78) and physical activity 16.71(44.14) respectively. The mean (SD) of perceived social support was 60.31(14.75) and 51.7% of pregnant women had intermediate social support. Our results indicated a significant difference between the mean score of health-promoting behaviors at different levels of social support, in addition, there was a direct and a meaningful association between social support and health-promoting behaviors scores (r= 0/35. P<0.001).
  • Conclusion: According to the present study, pregnant women are at intermediate statues of adopting health-promoting behaviors and social support. In addition, based on the results women with a better perception of social support had better performance in adopting health-promoting behaviors
  • Keywords: Health promotion, Social support, Pregnancy