The Journal of

Introduction: Urinary tract infection is considered as one of the most common complications of pregnancy, which can be avoided via adopting preventive behaviors. Hence, the present study aimed to investigate determinants of preventive behaviors of urinary tract infection in pregnant women based on the constructs of Health Belief Model in Yazd.

Methods: This descriptive cross- sectional study was conducted on 160 pregnant women referred to health centers of Yazd, suffering from urinary tract infection, who were selected via purposive sampling method. In order to glean the study data, a questionnaire based on the Health Belief Model construct was applid and then the study data were analyzed using SPSS Software (ver.18) via frequency tables and t-test.

Results: Among the pregnant women, 63.1% (101 patients) demonstrated average score of knowledge and 36.9% (59 patients) had good knowledge. Regarding the constructs of Health Belief Model, 73.1% (117) had good score of perceived barriers, 95% (152) demonstraded good perceived benefits, 95% (152) reported good perceived susceptibility, and 81.3% (130) scored a good level of perceived severity. Moreover, a significant correlation was observed between the total score of knowledge and attitude (p=0.02), though the correlation between the behavior and knowledge (p=0.08) as well as attitude and behavior (p=0.09) were not proved to be significant.

Conclusions: According to the results, further structural intervention needs to focus on perceived barriers in order to prevent the urinary tract infections. Furthermore, behaviors related to eating and hygiene habits should be considered further and the importance of family, wife and the media involvement seem to be essential in designing the training programs.