Background: Improving knowledge of pregnant women about labour pain and coping strategies are important in increasing self-efficacy and satisfaction of women during labour. Aim: of the current research was to evaluate the effect of childbirth preparation classes on women’s knowledge, self- efficacy and satisfaction to cope with labour pain. Design: A quasi-experimental research design was adopted to fulfil the aim of this research. Setting: The research was conducted at obstetrics & gynaecological outpatient clinic in Benha university hospital from the beginning of June, 2021 to the end of November, 2021 covering six months. Sample: A purposive sample of seventy pregnant women with randomly division into two groups (control group= 35 women who received only routine hospital care and study group= 35 women who received the childbirth preparation classes in addition to routine hospital care Tools: Data were collected through five main tools: A Structured interviewing questionnaire, maternal knowledge questionnaire, childbirth self-efficacy inventory, numerical rating scale, and women's satisfaction sheet. Results: showed that nearly three quarters(77.1% – 74.3%) of studied women in the study group had good knowledge at post and follow up stages respectively compared to nearly one quarter (28.6%) of control group. Additionally there was no statistically significant difference regarding all knowledge items, total knowledge and total self- efficacy between the study and the control group before childbirth preparation classes. However, a highly statistically significant difference (p-values < 0.001) was observed after implementation (post-test) and 24- 48hours after delivery (follow up). Additionally (62.9%, 71.1%) of studied women in the study group were satisfied compared to only (20%, 28.6%) of studied women in the control group at post-implementation stage and follow-up stage respectively. Also women in the study group had significantly lower level of pain score than women in the control group with statistically significant difference and there was a negative highly statistically significant correlation between total pain score and total satisfaction among both study and control group at follow-up stage. Conclusion: the study concluded that research hypotheses were supported and the childbirthpreparation classes had a positive effect on improvement of pregnant women's knowledge and in turn self-efficacy were also increased in study group compared to control group. Also the majority of women in the study group were satisfied with childbirth preparation classes. Recommendations: Outpatient clinics should be provided with posters and pamphlets regarding simple methods for dealing with labour pain to increase self-efficacy of pregnant women. |
