Abstract

One of the major determinants of maternal satisfaction in labour is adequate pain relief or rather the woman being able to cope with the pain. Since midwives are the major health care providers attending to women in labour, this study explored women’s validation of the care midwives provide in the management of labour pain in Plateau state Nigeria using a descriptive cross sectional design. Women (n=126) were recruited from a hospital in Jos city, Plateau State. Participants completed the “Client Perception of Caring Scale” and thereafter were interviewed using a structured interview, a day after their delivery; all these were for the women to validate the care given to manage labour pain by the midwives. Mean age of participants was 28 years with a Standard Deviation = 5.6. Majority of the participants that is, 125 (99.2%) are married, 116 (92.1%) are Christians while 67 (53.2%) are multigravid. Findings showed that only 71(56.3%) of the women gave an average score to the midwives, 28 (22.2%) said the nurses really gave them listening ears and reassured them that all will be well and 33 (26.2%) said the interventions were very effective in helping them cope with the labour. Linear regression analyses revealed that there is no association between selected demographic factors (Age, Parity and Ethnicity) and outcome of care given by midwife. Women validated their management of labour pain by midwives to be on the average hence training and retraining of midwives in the area of labour pain management is essential and hospital administrators must employ more midwives into the labour wards so that one on one support is encouraged hence improving the overall satisfaction of labour for any woman.

Key words: Mothers, validation, midwives’ care, labour pain, management.