The Relationship Between Women’s Satisfaction with Personnel’s Support During Labor, Fear of Childbirth, and Duration of Labor Stages

The main role of women’s caregivers is to provide supportive care. This research aimed to determine the relationship between women’s satisfaction with personnel’s support during labor, fear of childbirth, and duration of labor stages.

Following a cross-sectional design, this study was performed on 301 women at Taleghani and Alzahra hospitals of Tabriz, Iran. Fear of childbirth was assessed using Delivery Fear Scale (DFS) at 3 - 4 cm dilatation, and satisfaction with the personnel’s support was measured with Mackey’s satisfaction scale within 12 - 24 hours after delivery. The partograph diagram was used to assess the duration of the labor stages. The Pearson correlation test, independent t-test, one-way ANOVA, and multiple linear regression were used for data analysis.

The mean ± SD score of satisfaction with personnel’s support equaled 52.12 ± 13.9 (score range: 17 to 85), and the mean score of FSD equaled 40.2 ± 20.2 (score range: 10 to 100). Satisfaction with the personnel’s support showed a significant negative correlation with the fear of childbirth (r = -0.782, P < 0.001), duration of the active phase of labor (r = -0.14, P = 0.013), and total duration of labor (r = -0.14, P = 0.013). The multiple linear regression model indicated that fear of childbirth (β = -0.53; 95% CI: -0.58 to -0.48; P < 0.001) and total duration of labor (β = -0.007, 95% CI: -0.013 to -0.001; P = 0.029) were inversely related with the women’s satisfaction with the personnel’s support.

This study demonstrated that the FOC and prolonged labor can decrease satisfaction with the personnel’s support during labor.