A Study On Childbirth Self-Efficacy And The Relationship Of Childbirth Self-Efficacy To Labor Pain

There are about 20 million neonates in China, and approximately 50 percent of them were born by caesarean. The caesarean ratio went beyond 15 percent appealed by WHO. Initially, the enhancement of caesarean ratio had an effect on reducing the mortalities of parturients and neonates. The mortality of the group in the caesarean ratio above 20 percent made no difference from the group in the caesarean ratio under 20 percent. But the complications of it caused by caesarean ,such as postpartum hemorrhage ,infection , asphyxia and pneumonia of neonate , were much more than that by vaginal delivery. Therefore, reducing the caesarean ratio is an important problem to promoting the health level of parturients and neonates. Some investigations indicate that the several factors had an effect on the high caesarean ratio ,such as the women's fear of labor pain ,lack of knowledge about the complications leaded by caesarean . Some effective intervenes on the factors will help to reduce the caesarean ratio. Perceived self-efficacy is one's confidence and faith to the ability of behavior target's realization in Bandura's theory. Bandura deems that perceived self-efficacy is negative related to pain.One with high level of perceived self-efficacy feels fewer pain than others with low level of it . Bandura thinks that one with high level of perceived self-efficacy would alleviate pain by trying to learn all kinds of methods to relieve the pain,avoiding expectancy of depression and distracting one's attentions to pain . Childbirth self-efficacy is the confidence and faith of parturients to their abilities to apply the coping strategies that can alleviate pain to relieve labor pain . The strategies consist of bathypnea,elaxing one's body and distracting one's attentions to pain.Conclusions from some foreign studies revealed that childbirth self-efficacy was negative related to labor pain.It predicates that the higher level of childbirth self-efficacy, the lower degree of pain during labor . But the details of the conclusions have some diversities because of dissimilarities in the methods of the researches. There is no any conclusion agreed by all researchers now. The domestic researches about labor pain are few and have some shortcomings. Firstly, the methods used to rate the level of labor pain are very vague,so the conclusions are difficult to reflect the actual status and develop deeply. Secondly, the domestic researches explored only one potential effective factor on labor pain –coping mode of parturients. No domestic studies are working about childbirth self-efficacy and labor pain. The purpose of this study was to investigate the status of childbirth self-efficacy and labor pain among Chinese parturients, and analyze the correlation of the demographic characteristicsvariables with childbirth self-efficacy and labor pain, in order to find the predictors of childbirth self-efficacy and labor pain.The clinical doctors and nurses can help the parturients to relieve labor pain by intervening their status of the predictors. This may contribute to reduce the caesarean ratio and promote the health level of parturients and neonates. A total of 130 parturients were interviewed by author and other clinical doctors and nurses who were trained to by author.The parturients were asked to answer four questionnaires ,including the demographic characteristics questionnaire, SCL-90,the Childbirth Self-Efficacy Inventory and the pain questionnaire. The data were analyzed with Spss11.0 for Windows with Spss11.0 for Windows by way of descriptive statistics, compare means, correlation analysis and step regression analysis. The results showed that: 1.Subjects of the study showed that the score of childbirth self-efficacy was 7.1539. All subjects had remarkable pain during labor. 2. Childbirth self-efficacy was significantly positive correlated with the degree of mastery of the coping strategies to relieve pain during labor, health state during pregnancy and family income. Childbirth self-efficacy was significantly negative correlated with anxiety,depression and horror etc. 3.Labor pain was significantly negative correlated with the degree of comprehend about the process of childbirth, health state...