[Project to improve perinatal care effectiveness in Vietnamese women]

The number of new immigrant female spouses, particularly from Vietnam, continues to increase steadily in Taiwan. However, these women are nearly all young and become pregnant early, while still in an immature psychosomatic status. Furthermore, various life adaptations are stacked against their maintaining good personal health or providing good healthcare to their babies. Therefore, the aim of this project was to understand the problems faced by Vietnamese women during the perinatal period in order to improve care effectiveness. Following data analysis, problems identified included lack of completeness of perinatal care processes, a dearth of education tools in the Vietnamese language and poor communications, which resulted in poor nursing education outcomes and a low 1.64-point satisfaction with nursing service (total = 4 points). After (1) revising perinatal care processes, (2) producing Vietnamese communication cards, nursing education pamphlets, CD of notices during pregnancy, and video-CDs for baby bathing and breast feeding skills, and (3) holding mother classes in cooperation with health stations, perinatal checkups during pregnancy increased from 26% to 83.9%; proper practice of Lamaze during labor rose from 43% to 80.6%; accurately performed postnatal uterus massage increased from 46% to 90.3%; use of proper baby bathing techniques rose from 39% to 77.4%; proper breastfeeding increased from 57% to 100% and satisfaction with nursing services increased to 3.78 points. These improvements achieved project aims. This project not only improved the effectiveness of perinatal care for Vietnamese women, but also improved their satisfaction with nursing services.