Understanding the client is important
Understanding the client is important
Beyond Health Literacy: Pregnancy care
Project Overview
The project aims at understanding the everyday challenges that pregnant women, caregivers, and healthcare professionals face in relation to maternal health. Based in village Kuraj, Rajsamand, Rajashthan, the focus area of the project is pregnancy complications specifically anemia. The project further digs into the scope of healthcare technologies in a rural setup.
Research intent help in defining the question that frames the focus of the research which will use to drive the research project
In-depth understanding of pregnant women who are at risk of pregnancy complications to better understand women’s experiences through socio-cultural and care practices, beliefs, traditions, feelings, motivations, daily routines, infrastructures (physical and/or digital)
Recruiting the right participant is one of the important step for starting any research on field
The recruitment process was to locate the participants (pregnant women), who had complications (focus here was anemia). Visits to Angwanwadi centers in the locality were made with the help of health workers to list down the participants.
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No. of participants:
Around 18 women were interviewed out of whom 15 had anemia. Apart from pregnant women, ASHA workers, and Anganwadi workers, other caregivers were also interviewed.
The secondary research is done on the previous work related to schemes provided by the government and the NGO initiatives in the research area.
Research is incomplete without interacting with actual users
Visual forms of interviews were used to engage the participants and make the conversation more interactive.
The group activity sessions conducted with pregnant women accompanied by their family members. Asked to draw about the places that they go to in the 9 months. Along with this, they were asked to map their feelings when they visit those places.
The exercise was intended to bring out the navigation and emotions of the women during those months.
Conducted Participatory activity with Asha and Anganwadi workers at different centers were given a few scenarios and were asked to choose what would they do in those situations.
Data analysis is the stepping stone towards finding patterns from the research
9 Month Mapping:
data was to divide it into the trimester cycles of a woman's pregnancy and map all the interviews accordingly.
Affinity Mapping :
One of the methods was clustering information using affinity mapping and bringing out the themes from the clusters.
Conclusion
Decision making in pregnancy care depends on the social structure, hierarchy of the family, and her surroundings​.
Women look and desire for a place where they could be taken care of.
​Traditional beliefs, cultural practices play an important role in care during the days of pregnancy. Beliefs about avoiding food items came out evidently during the interactions.
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Publication:
Beyond Health Literacy: Navigating Boundaries and Relationships During High-risk Pregnancies: Challenges and Opportunities for Digital Health in North-West India
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Collaboration:
University of Leicester, Loughborough University
Jatan Sansthan, Udaipur, Rajasthan.
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Study Setting:
Kuraj, Rajsamand, Rajashthan state in India.
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Role:
A Design Research Assistant