American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Pain and women's satisfaction with the experience of childbirth: A systematic review☆,☆☆
Section snippets
Methods
Studies were considered for inclusion if they involved women in labor or women who had experienced labor, and outcomes included one or more of the following: measures of satisfaction (with the childbirth experience, with care, or with pain relief); measures of pain; and women's views of and evaluations of their childbirth experiences. Studies of pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic measures to alleviate intrapartum pain were included only if they incorporated a measure of satisfaction.
The types
Results
One hundred thirty-seven reports were retrieved in the literature search. Sixty-eight reports were excluded for the following reasons. In 37, the purpose was not relevant. Nine reports provided no data on satisfaction with pain relief nor satisfaction with any aspect of the birth experience, 1 systematic review reported satisfaction with pain relief, but the experimental intervention was not a pain relief method, 18 had one or more serious methodological problems, and 3 were literature reviews
Comment
Descriptive studies of the impact of intrapartum medical interventions on satisfaction with care consistently show inverse relationships: the more interventions, the more likely it is that some dissatisfaction will be reported. However, interpretations of most of the observational studies are complicated by the problem of inferring causality from relationships. Ordinarily, the best method of ascertaining cause and effect would be the randomized controlled trial. The trials of medical
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Cited by (0)
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Supported by the University of Toronto.
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Reprint requests: Professor Ellen Hodnett, RN, PhD, Maternal-Child Nursing Research Unit, 790 Bay St, Suite 950, Toronto, Ontario M5G 1N8, Canada.