Effect of Educational Intervention on Self-efficacy for Choosing Delivery Method among Pregnant Women in 2013

BACKGROUND: Nowadays, there has been a growing trend of caesarean sections in Iran. One reason would be the mother's desire. Increased maternal self-efficacy can be an important step to reduce percentage of cesarean. This study aimed to determine the effectiveness of training-based strategies to increase the self-efficacy for choosing delivery method among pregnant women in Shahrekord city. METHODS: This quasi-experimental study was conducted on 130 pregnant women who attended urban health centers in Shahrekord city in 2013. Intervention was applied in the experimental group in three sessions in about 60-90 min while control group did not receive any intervention. Fear of childbirth and self-efficacy questionnaire was completed before and after training. RESULTS: While mean scores of the fear of childbirth, expectations and childbirth self-efficacy before the intervention between the two groups were not significantly different (P > 0.05), mean scores of childbirth in intervention group was reduced and expectation and childbirth self-efficacy had a significant increase after intervention (P < 0.05). In this study, 71.4% of mothers in intervention group and 53.8% of control mothers naturally delivered their children. Most of intervention group mothers desired to deliver through cesarean and had more fear (P < 0.001) but lower childbirth expectation (P > 0.05) and self-efficacy (P < 0.001) than those who chose normal method. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings showed that training-based self-efficacy procedure has been effective in encouraging mothers to choose natural childbirth. Therefore, the design and implementation of curriculum-based strategies for increasing self-efficacy is suggested for pregnant women.