Health Literacy’s Influence on Maternal Care Satisfaction: SES and Pregnancy Knowledge

Abstract

Purpose: The present research is aimed at discovering the links between pregnant women in Saudi Arabia’s hospitals scattered in the country between the level of parents’ satisfaction among assurance seeking, health literacy, and socioeconomic level (SES). Method: This research sample was based on 119 pregnant women visiting or admitted to various hospitals of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The information was collected via structured interviews that were further verified using the previously established scaling method. The data was analyzed through the SEM technique, in Stata, which allowed us to visualize associative connections between latent and observable variables. Findings: There were strong positive correlations between SES and the parents’ satisfaction with maternity care as demonstrated by the data, thus suggesting that socioeconomic status is directly related to greater satisfaction with prenatal services. Similarly, it was found that the impact of SES on satisfaction with care was mediated by keeping well-informed about pregnancy and motherhood and by improving public health awareness. Hence, it is important to focus on improving health literacy which definitely can be helpful in women’s experiences in the healthcare system. Originality/Implications: This research improves our maternal health care health system by illustrating the complicated connection between social factors, health literacies, and pregnancy care. Understanding socioeconomic factors and inequity in knowledge is a key issue in improving service quality and usefulness of antenatal services both in Saudi Arabia and worldwide.