Factors related to childbirth nurses' intentions to provide continuous labour support to women during childbirth

Abstract

Purpose. Explore the organizational barriers and examine determinants of nurses' intentions to practice continuous labour support (CLS). Design. Exploratory two-phase study using qualitative and quantitative methods. Participants. Childbirth nurses, educators and managers from two birthing units on two campuses of one hospital, in an urban city in Ontario, Canada. Phase I, N=10/10; Phase II, N = 97/129. Methods. Semi-structured interviews with content analysis followed by a survey using the Theory of Planned Behavior with descriptive, univariate and multiple regression analyses. Results. Unit acuity, method of patient assignment, need to cover other nurses for break and nurse-patient ratio, were the most frequently reported barriers. Nurses' attitude scores, subjective norm scores and intention scores toward providing CLS to women with epidural analgesia were lower than those for a non-epidural case study. Conclusions. Organizational barriers impact nurses' ability to provide CLS. Nurses have lower intentions to provide CLS to women with epidural analgesia.