Investigation of the effect of supporting nursing care provided in line with evidence-based practices during intrapartum period

Aim: The aim of the research was to examine the effect of supportive nursing care provided in line with evidence-based practices during the intrapartum period. Materials and Methods: This randomized-controlled and experimental study was carried out in a public hospital in the province of Balıkesir, from September 2021 to February 2021. The sample of the study (experimental: 52, control: 52) consisted of 104 pregnant women. Experimental and control groups were matched considering the age group, education level, body mass index, number of births and pregnancies, and participation in prenatal preparation classes. During the intrapartum period, the pregnants in the experimental group were given supportive nursing care and the pregnants in the control group were given routine nursing care. The descriptive characteristics of the pregnant questionnaire, the State Anxiety Scale, the Visual Comparison Scale (VAS), and the pain diagram, labor and postpartum evaluation form were used to collect the data. Results: No statistically significant difference was found in terms of sociodemographic and obstetric characteristics of pregnant women in the experimental and control groups. There was no statistical difference between the State Anxiety Scale mean scores of the women in the experimental and control groups at admission to the delivery unit during the intrapartum period (p>0.05). State Anxiety Scale and VAS score averages of the pregnant women in the experimental group before and after supportive nursing care in the latent, active and transitional phase were found to be statistically significantly lower than the pregnant women in the control group (p<0.001). Conclusions: Supportive nursing care provided in the intrapartum period in line with evidence-based practices has been found to have an effect on perceived labor pain, state anxiety levels, duration of labor, perceived difficulty in labor, decrease in second-degree laceration, first and fifth minute Apgar scores of the newborn, and postpartum satisfaction (p<0.05). Keywords: Intrapartum period, supportive nursing care, state anxiety.