|
|
Education of women in the postpartum period
BĚHANOVÁ, Věra
This bachelor's thesis addresses patient education for postpartum women upon discharge from the hospital to a home environment. The section on theory contains a definition of the terms education, pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period. The postpartum period is divided into physiological and pathological aspects. The changes a woman undergoes in the physiological postpartum period are divided into repair, involutional, hormonal, extragenital and lactation. The physical changes involve areas on which the women need to receive thorough instruction from the birth assistant, primarily regarding lifestyle changes during the postpartum period. Two goals were set up for the research section. The first was to determine how birth assistants educate women in the labor and delivery ward upon discharge to home care. The second was to determine whether the women made use of the information concerning the postpartum period. These goals raised three questions for research. Research question 1: In what areas do birth assistants educate women upon discharge to home care? Research question 2: What information was most important for women upon discharge to home care? Research question 3: What information did women lack during the patient education? The research part of the bachelor's thesis was carried out in the qualitative form of an investigation. The data was collected in the form of a semi-structured interview. The data acquired was analyzed by marking the text in various colors and then creating the main semantic categories and subcategories. Two research sets were put together. The first research set was made up of six birth assistants working on a maternity ward in a Prague hospital. The second research set was made up of 12 mothers who gave birth in the same hospital, stayed in the maternity ward, and had completed the six-week postpartum period. For greater objectivity the mothers selected were primiparas who could not draw on previous postpartum experiences. The answers from the birth assistants were arranged in one category (Education upon Discharge) and five subcategories (Areas of Education, Method of Education, Obstacles to Education, Importance of Education, Home Visits). The answers from the respondents (women after the six-week postpartum period is over) were also put into one category (Information Provided to Women) and eight subcategories (Expectations, Sources of Information, Areas of Education, Methods of Education, Evaluation of Education, Missing Information and Acquiring Missing Information, Need for Assistance, Opinion on Home Visits). The research showed that although birth assistants are aware of the importance of patient education and stated that they provide patient education on all areas necessary, the respondents received little to no information in certain areas. The problems they faced in the six-week postpartum period concerned breastfeeding and this was the very topic where the information provided to the mothers was most insufficient. This was because in the hospital where the research took place, breastfeeding is the exclusive responsibility of the pediatric nurses, so the birth assistants mostly leave patient education in this area to a pediatric nurse or pediatrician, who also provides patient education to mothers when discharging the infants. All birth assistants should give at least basic information on breastfeeding when providing patient education and give the mothers contact information for if they encounter difficulties in breastfeeding (e.g. the Czech National Breastfeeding Hotline, www.kojeni.cz). The output of this thesis is a brochure with information on the postpartum period, which women can take with them after being discharged to home care, and a patient education card which helps birth assistants with the education.
|
guest ::
