Association of Sociodemographic, Obstetric, and Attitudinal Factors with Prenatal Ultrasound in Mashhad, Iran

Abstract

Many antenatal sonographies are out of indication and may be asked due to mothers' requests or other factors. However, these features are not fully understood. This study aimed to assess the association of sociodemographic, obstetric, and attitudinal factors that may affect the number of ultrasound scans. In a cross-sectional study in six hospitals affiliated with Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, 360 mothers who had a delivery or were expected to be near childbirth were enrolled in the study. The mean number of sonographies was compared between different study variables by using Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis, and Pearson's Chi-squared tests. Moreover, the Spearman Rho test was used to assess the correlation between different variables and the number of sonographies. Totally, 300 cases remained in the study. The mean age of the mothers was 25.95 ± 4.77 years, and the average number of ultrasonographies was 3.50 ± 1.35. In case of sociodemographic features, the level of education (r = 0.23; p < 0.001) and several recent miscarriages (r = 0.140; p = 0.01) were correlated with number of sonographies. However, there was no association between maternal age and marriage age with several sonographies (p > 0.05). Furthermore, mothers with higher family income (p = 0.010), those with medical insurance (p = 0.010), those who had male fetuses (p = 0.020), those who were clerk or student (p = 0.003), and those who were not aware of the sonography risks (p = 0.020) had more requests for sonography. It seems that financial factors and awareness of sonography risks play an essential role in sonography requests by mothers.