| dc.description.abstract | The study was entitled “Midwives’ adherence to standard preoperative care guidelines prior to a C-section in Masaka and Kitovu hospitals. In Uganda, statistics indicate that cesarean section is one of the most common surgical procedures performed in obstetrics and gynecology accounting for about 32%. However, between (1-8)% of them result into complications such as puerperal sepsis, gaping wounds, blood loss as well as extended hospital stay, thereby stalling the country‟s efforts reduce maternal mortality ratio by at least 75% by 2015. Guided by the objectives of identifying the knowledge related factors, determining the health system factors, assessing the socio-demographic factors, as well as determining the level of adherence to
standard preoperative care guidelines, the study sought to identify factors influencing midwives' adherence to standard preoperative care guidelines prior to a cesarean section in Kitovu and Masaka hospitals. Existing literature for different authors was reviewed to ascertain the agreements and disagreements.
Using a cross sectional research design and adopting a quantitative research approach, the study was able to seek views from 45 midwives. The midwives were purposively selected as they are the ones involved in providing preoperative care before conducting a C-section. To obtain the required information, a research-administered questionnaire was used. Thereafter, the data was cleaned, coded, edited and tabulated using statistical package for social scientists (SPSS) version 20 to extract graphs, frequency tables and percentages.
The study findings revealed that knowledge gap on awareness of standard preoperative care guidelines and lack of in-service training explained the non-adherence of midwives' to standard preoperative care guidelines before a C-section. Furthermore, the study has revealed that absence of standard preoperative care guidelines in hospital wards, high patient numbers and poor staff supervision and support were the health system factors influencing midwives' adherence to standard preoperative care guidelines. Moreover, the study also revealed that age, education level, experience and marital status of midwives explained the variations in adherence to standard preoperative care guidelines. In relation to adherence, the study revealed that there was a moderate level of adherence of 66.7%.
Based on these findings, the researcher recommended that hospitals should provide mentorship programs to junior midwives, conduct in-service training to newly recruited midwives, improve staff supervision and support as well as provide evidence-based information to pregnant mothers.
Furthermore, the researcher suggested that future academicians should research on the role of standard preoperative care guidelines in improving treatment outcomes for a C-section delivery. | en_US |
