Utilization of Obstetric Analgesia in Labor Pain Management and associated Factors among Obstetric Care Givers in Amhara Regional State Referral Hospitals, Northwest Ethiopia: A Hospital based Cross Sectional Study

Back ground: Labor pain is the most severe form of pain in women’ life and it was considered as a punishment given by God. Developed countries use obstetric analgesia routinely but in developing countries including Ethiopia it is not a common practice. The aim of this study was to assess utilization of obstetric analgesia in labor pain management and associated factors among obstetric care givers in Amhara Regional State Referral Hospitals, North West Ethiopia.

Method: Institution based cross sectional study was conducted from July 1-15/2014. The study was conducted on all obstetric care givers in Amhara Regional State Referral Hospitals. Self-administered, pre-tested and structured questionnaires was used to collect the data. Data consistency was checked and entered into EpiInfo then exported to SPSS for further analysis. Descriptive analysis done, logistic regression analyses were also used to see the association of dependent and independent variables. Finally Odds ratio and 95% Confidence interval were computed to determine the strength of association.

Result: The overall utilization of obstetric analgesia in labour pain management was 40.1% which showed only non-pharmacologic methods. The utilization of pharmacologic obstetric analgesia methods was zero. Multivariate logistic regression showed that professionals with low level qualification (AOR=2.69, 95%CI: 1.13, 6.41) and inadequate knowledge (AOR=2.57, 95%CI: 1.42, 4.65) were statistically associated with utilization of obstetric analgesia.

Conclusion: Proportion of obstetric analgesia utilization was very low; highest qualification and inadequate knowledge were significantly associated with obstetric analgesia utilization. Providers need to help labouring mother with analgesia; update and make themselves familiar with obstetric analgesia. The quality and associated factors of obstetric analgesia utilization need to be investigated.

Author(s):

Abebayehu Bitew, Amare Workie , Tewodros Seyum and Tesfaye Demeke

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