Abstract:
Background; Labor pain is the most painful and stressful natural experience of a mother’s life.
Management of labor pain has great effect on the mother’s experience and future possible health
seeking behavior. Although there are various methods of managing the pain, these practices are
not yet common in our setup. Anecdotal data at Jimma university medical center showed
possible lack of understanding about epidural analgesia among health care providers which may
result in low performance and prevent its applicability as labor analgesia in the obstetrics set up.
At Jimma university medical center this study can help us develop understanding of the current
knowledge and attitude affecting its practice and build baseline data to expand the practice of
anesthesiology while making the labor experience painless for mothers.
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the knowledge and attitude of epidural analgesia
and associated factors among obstetric healthcare professionals in Jimma university medical
center, Jimma, Ethiopia, 2022 G.C.
Method: Institution-based, prospective cross-sectional study design was conducted from
September to November, 2022 G.C in JUMC among 124 obstetric healthcare professionals.
Descriptive and logistic regression analysis was used to show the association of the dependent
and independent variables at a P-value of ≤0.05 cut off point to declare significance. Odds ratio
and 95% confidence interval were computed to determine the strength of association.
Result and conclusion: More than half of obstetric health care professionals had poor
knowledge and unfavorable attitude towards epidural labor analgesia. There were statistically
significant association between knowledge as well as attitude and variables like level of
education and current place of work.
Recommendation: There is a need to improve obstetric health care professional’s knowledge
and attitude towards epidural labor analgesia through education and training.
