Abstract

Bekelu Teka Worku* and Minale Fekadie Baye

Background: Unmanaged severe labour pain can result in physiological and psychological health problems to women whereas pain management is a fundamental human right. Furthermore, healthcare providers have a duty of care to support women as per a principal of reproductive right and also to improve quality of health care. Objective: The main objective of this study is to assess medical interns’ knowledge, attitude and practice on labour pain management at Jimma University Medical Center. Methods: Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted from November 12-13/2019. Self-administered structured questionnaire was used to collect data. All medical interns who fulfil the inclusion criteria was included. Pretest of the tool was done on five percent of sample among Riftvalley University Collage final year midwifery students. Data were entered using EpiData software version 3.1 and analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences version 20. Results: A total of 185 medical interns included in to the study making a response rate of more than 100% as per the calculated minimum sample size. In this study the overall favorable attitude, good knowledge and good practice of medical interns in labour pain management were 45.9%, 54.1% and 31.9% respectively. Conclusion: This study identified that, the overall knowledge, attitude and practice of Jimma University Medical Center medical interns’ labour pain management were low. Consequently, the researchers recommend all concerning bodies including Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Education, policy makers and curriculum developer to work on mechanisms to improve this.