Abstract

Introduction: Evaluation of medical and health care quality is considered as gate for care quality improvement. With evaluation of quality and the way of providing care, current status can be specified and effectiveness of performed measures for promoting care quality can be understood. Donabedian model is a suitable model for evaluating care in medical and health services. Based on this model, care process is an important part of care which evaluates process of service delivery and reception in terms of technical aspect and inter-personal interaction. Current study was conducted aiming at determining status of prenatal care based on Donabedian model. Method: This descriptive study was conducted in 2015 on 260 women who referred to Zabol medical and health center for receiving prenatal care. Individuals were selected usingmultistage sampling method. Data collection tool included questionnaire of care providers’ specifications, research units’ specifications, and checklist of prenatal care process observation which was divided into two parts of technical performance and interpersonal interaction. Following data collection, data were analyzed using SPSS (Version 18) software and Kruskal-Wallis and chi-square tests. P smaller than 0.05 was considered as significant. Findings: Mean total score of care process was 34.68 ± 3.10. In separation of care process into technical performance and interpersonal interaction, results showed that mean score in the former part was 24.09 ± 3.07 and mean score in interpersonal interaction part was 12.71 ± 1.67. Study findings regarding investigation of compatibility of care level with optimal level showed that care process delivery status was average in 91.7 of cases. Conclusion: Research findings indicated that prenatal care process level in the region under study is average level. Since most pregnancy problems and even after delivery result from improper prenatal care, appropriate education for empowerment of midwives seems necessary to provide quality service to the mothers. © 2017, Pharmainfo Publications. All rights reserved.