Abstract

ASSESSMENT OF SAUDI WOMEN AWARENESS ABOUT PAIN RELIEF AGENTS IN LABOR IN AL-HASA CITY OF SAUDI ARABIA

Dr. Amal Khaleel Abu Alhommos* and Malak AlDossary

Abstract

The awareness and attitudes towards labor pain and labor pain relief agents in women are not clearly known. The physiological nature of the pain in labor makes it an experience most women will want to avoid it; effective pain management during the labor process is associated with a safe birth experience for the mother and the baby. Our study objective is to assess the women awareness, preferences and utilization of pain relief agents in labor in Al-Hassa city. Our study design is a cross-sectional study conducted in Al-Hassa city of Saudi Arabia. The 351 women conducted in this study from 19 December 2015 to 27 January 2016. By exclusion of unmarried women, the sample size of the study was 291 women. The Saudi women reported a good level of awareness regarding most of the items on the questionnaire. The 44.1% reported that they hearing about pain relief agents in labor for first time before pregnancy, the information recourse about pain relief agent's preference from health care providers was 35.4% and the highest percentage as adviser who encourage married women to use certain pain relief agents was the physicians 42.8%. As conclusion according to our study results, showed a moderate level of Saudi women awareness about pain relief agents in the labor. Saudi women reported that they seek about their knowledge mainly from health care providers and from their experience. For further researches, we recommended to perform same study for different area in Saudi Arabia to determine the most cost-effective method.

Keywords: Awareness, labor, pain relief agents and women.