Effectiveness of Childbirth Preparation on Knowledge and Pain Coping Behaviors During Labor among Primiparous Women at Tha Yang Hospital
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Abstract
This quasi-experimental study employed a two-group pretest–posttest design. The objectives were to compare knowledge scores regarding childbirth preparation in the experimental group before and after participating in the program and to compare maternal knowledge scores and pain-coping behavior scores during labor between the experimental and control groups after the intervention. The participants consisted of 44 primigravida women at 28–36 weeks of gestation who received antenatal care at Tha Yang Hospital and had no medical or obstetric complications. Participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group using a simple lottery method, with 22 participants in each group. The control group received routine nursing care, whereas the experimental group participated in the childbirth preparation program. The research instruments consisted of the childbirth preparation program, a childbirth preparation knowledge questionnaire with a Kuder–Richardson Formula 20 (KR-20) reliability coefficient of .70, and an observational checklist for pain-coping behaviors during labor with a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .85. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Wilcoxon signed-rank test, and the Mann–Whitney U test.
The results revealed that, after participating in the childbirth preparation program, the experimental group had significantly higher knowledge scores than before the intervention (Z = 4.11, p < .001). Their post-intervention knowledge scores were also significantly higher than those of the control group, who received routine nursing care (Z = 5.42, p < .001). Furthermore, pain-coping behavior scores during the active and transition phases of labor were significantly higher in the experimental group than in the control group (Z = 5.77 and 5.73, respectively; p < .001). However, no statistically significant difference in pain-coping behavior scores was found between the two groups during the latent phase of labor (Z = 1.75, p = .081).
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