Relationships Between Reproductive Health And Behavior Styles Among Married Women In Child-bearing Age In Rural Anhui Province

Objectives This study aims at investigating the relationships between behavior styles and reproductive health-related knowledge, behaviors and reproductive health status among married women in child-bearing age.MethodsThe study was guided by a theoretical framework that conceptualizes displayed individual behavior as being determined by his/her internal Cognitive- Affective Process System (CAPS) and categorizes human behaviors into major groups according to perceived lovability of self, others and environment.. Structured questionnaire was used to solicit data on behavior styles and reproductive health and its related knowledge and behaviors. Conveinence sampling was employed in drawing 1221 married wowan farmers in child-bear age from three counties in Anhui province. The questionnaire was administered by trained interviewers at the respondents'households. SPSS was used to analyze the data collected and perform descriptive and comparative analysis.Results (1) With regard to behavior styles and reproductive health-related knowledge, by comparing the eight groups with different behavior styles, it was found that optimistic-secure individuals were most educated about reproductive while pessimistic- fearful respondents were least educated in this regard (χ2=98.66,P<0.01). Similar results were also observed in more specific domains of knowledge. For example, optimistic-secure respondents knew more about safer sex than pessimistic-fearful ones did. Their correct answeres to questions concerning safer sex behaviors accounted for 82.21% and 69.86% respectively (χ2=92.60,P<0.01). Turning to knowledge about contraception methods, optimistic-secure women were better educated than pessimistic ones with their correct answeres accounting for 46.01% and 41.35% respectively (χ2=15.67,P<0.05). In terms of knowledge about sexually transmitted infections, optimistic-secure women were again better educated than pessimistic ones with their correct answeres accounting for 25.31%, and 17.09% respectively (χ2=41.98,P<0.01). (2) With regard to reproductive health-related practices, statistically significant differences were found between the eight groups with different behavior styles. For instance, the ratings on safer sexual behaviors were higher for optimistic- secure women than for pessimistic ones being 4.56 and 4.35 respectively (F=2.237,P<0.05); and the ratings on partner communications were also higher for optimistic- secure women than for pessimistic ones being 3.96 and 3.76 respectively (F=2.590,P<0.05). (3) With regard to social support, the ratings for pessimistic-secure and pessimistic-preocupied individuals were relatively higher than that of optimistic-fearful individuals, being 3.15, 3.14 and 2.88 respectively (F=10.170 , P<0.01). The ratings on financial support were the highest among pessimistic-preocupied individuals while the lowest among optimistic-fearful individuals being 3.22 and 2.91 respectively (F=6.475,P<0.01). Pessimistic- preocupied individuals were also the group who received the most psychological support while the pessimistic-fearful group received least psychological support. The ratings in this regard for these two group were 3.42and 3.11 respectively (F=10.560,P<0.01). (4) The rate of abnormality of duration of mesnstrul and dysmenorrea in pessimistic-dismissing individual account for 40.9% and 45.0%, and it's only account for 25.1%(χ2=83.133,P<0.01) and 32.6%(χ2=32.692,P<0.01)in optimistic-secure and optimistic- dismissing individual respectively. Comparing with optimistic and pessimistic-secure individual, optimistic-dismissing individual had a more severe dysmenorrheal physical symptoms symptoms. Conclusions Behavior styles are closely related with reproductive-health related knowledge and behaviors. This sheds new light on designing more effective interventions tailored to individual's specific psychological features.