آنچه زنان از زمینه ی اسلامی در استرالیا در مورد مراقبت در دوران بارداری و آزمایش های دوران بارداری می گویند

Objective: to examine satisfaction with care and services in relation to antenatal care and prenatal testing and to present what women say about what can be done better to improve antenatal care for women from an Islamic background. Design: in-depth interviews of women's perceptions and experiences of care received relating to prenatal testing and antenatal care. Setting: Melbourne Metropolitan Area, Victoria, Australia. Participants: 15 women of Islamic background who are now living in Melbourne. Findings: in general, women had positive experiences with care relating to antenatal care and prenatal testing in Australia. This is particularly so when they compared care in Australia with that of their own country. However, women indicated several issues of concern where they were dissatisfied and they believed need to be improved for pregnant women from an Islamic background. Firstly, there was a lack of sufficient communication between health care providers and the women. This was not only due to a language problem, but also a lack of cultural appreciation among health care providers. Secondly, women identified the issue of gender of health care providers as important; women stated clearly their need to have female doctors for their care. Conclusions: the findings of this study have implications for antenatal care and prenatal testing services in Australia and elsewhere. Women provided several suggestions for the improvement of care including the need for sufficient information of prenatal testing and antenatal care and the need for culturally sensitive services. In providing services for women of an Islamic background, it is imperative that health care providers take into account individual women's preferences and personal circumstances and go beyond an assumption based on women's religion and ethnicity.

In this paper the opinions of women from an Islamic background about care and services in relation to antenatal care and prenatal testing are presented. As pregnancy has become medicalised in most Western societies, including Australia, pregnant women are required to attend antenatal care and undergo many tests in order to monitor not only their health but also that of their fetus. One aspect of pregnancy care which has become a routine part of antenatal care in Australia is the provision of prenatal screening for pregnant women. Ultrasound and maternal serum screening, the two common prenatal screenings, are offered to women regardless of their ‘risk’. Those who are over 35 years, and who are defined as a ‘high-risk’ group, will be offered a more invasive prenatal testing including chorionic villus sampling (CVS) and amniocentesis (Abramsky & Chapple 1994, Kolker & Burke 1994, Rothenberg & Thomson 1994, Halliday et al. 1995). The routinisation of prenatal testing in antenatal care assumes that women, regardless of their social and cultural backgrounds, will accept prenatal testing during their pregnancy. While some studies have indicated this is the case (Tsoi & Hunter 1987, Press & Browner 1993, 1997, Roelofsen et al. 1993, Crang-Svalenius et al. 1997), others have shown resistance from women (Berne-Fromell et al. 1984, Marriott et al. 1990, Thorpe et al. 1993, Julian-Reynier et al. 1994, Jorgensen 1995, Rapp 1998, Santalahti et al. 1998, Markens et al. 1999). The only study that examined the perceptions and experiences of prenatal testing among Thai immigrant women in Australia (Liamputtong Rice & Naksook 1998), has also shown that Thai women accepted prenatal testing, although some women felt ambivalent about the test. What has not received much attention is whether women from non-English-speaking backgrounds are satisfied with the care and services provided for them when they undergo prenatal testing and when they attend for antenatal care. One recent study on Muslim women and care received during childbirth, indicates low satisfaction with care among the women (Vose & Thurecht 1999). We do not have enough knowledge about how women from an Islamic background perceive the care they receive in antenatal care and prenatal testing. We attempt to fill this gap in the literature by focusing on immigrant women from an Islamic background in Australia. In this paper, we discuss two issues. Firstly, we examine whether women were satisfied with the care and services in relation to antenatal care in general, and prenatal testing in particular. Secondly, we present what women say can be done better for them in the Australian health care system. We conclude the paper with some implications for antenatal care and prenatal testing for women from non-English-speaking backgrounds in Australia and elsewhere. It must be noted here that prenatal testing in this paper refers only to prenatal screening (ultrasound and maternal serum screening) and prenatal diagnosis (amniocentesis and CVS).

Due to the qualitative nature of the study on which this paper is based, the findings cannot represent the perceptions and the experiences of all women of Islamic backgrounds. Qualitative research does not provide findings which can be generalised. However, it provides readers with a better understanding of women’s subjective experience since the information can be obtained through their own voices (Daly et al. 1997, Liamputtong Rice & Ezzy 1999). Additionally, the findings of this study may have some limitations as, although the women share an Islamic religion, they come from different countries. This difference may influence the opinions given in this study. However, due to its length, it is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss this influence in great depth.