TY - JOUR AU - Teshome, Million AU - Abdella, Ahmed AU - Kumbi, Solomon PY - 2016/12/06 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Parturients' need of continuous labor support in labor wards JF - The Ethiopian Journal of Health Development JA - EJHD VL - 21 IS - 1 SE - Original Articles DO - UR - https://ejhd.org/index.php/ejhd/article/view/555 SP - AB - Abstract Introduction: The presence of a companion during labor and delivery benefits for both the laboring women and neonate. Continuous labor support is practiced in different parts of the world. In Ethiopia, it is neither practiced well nor researched in-depth. Objective: The purpose of the study was to assess the attitude of women in response to labor support based at institutional deliveries. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study by design. Data on labor support was collected from 406 women who delivered at three University hospitals in Addis Ababa through trained nurses using a pre-tested questionnaire. The result was analyzed using EPI INFO version 6 software packages. Results: Seventy-three percent of the study women had fear of labor mainly due to associated pain (66.1%). About 53% of them need to have a companion during labor. The reasons given for wanting companion were emotional (49.5%), information (25%) and physical (21.7%) supports. About 54% and 37% of women at labor need to have respectively their mothers and husbands as companions. The need for labor companion was significantly associated with maternal age (x2=13.57, p=0.00), educational status (x2=8.7, p=0.000), monthly household income (x2=14, p=0.00), marital status (x2=16.77, p=0.00), and mode of delivery (x2=9.69, p=0.02). Conclusion: There is a need of introducing labor companion system in our labor wards. Significant proportion of women preferred their mothers as companions. Further exploratory and operational researches suggested to be done in addressing providers, companion and programmatic issues to introduce policies and guidelines of labor support into labor wards. [Ethiop.J.Health Dev. 2007;21(1):35-39] ER -