Opinions and attitudes of parturients, midwives, and obstetricians about Caesarean section in the provinces of Podkarpackie, Poland, and Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine.

Introduction And Objective: Present the opinions of parturients, midwives, and obstetricians concerning CS in the provinces of Podkarpackie (Poland) and Ivano-Frankivsk (Ukraine).

Material And Methods: An anonymous questionnaire for parturients (n=1,295), midwives (n=47) and obstetricians (n=78), assessing demographics, knowledge and attitudes concerning CS, was distributed in 13 hospitals. In addition to measured anxiety among parturients, we also used the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI).

Results: Differences between the subgroups concerned respondents' ages and place of residence (p=0.0000). Parturients from Poland more often accepted the possibility of vaginal delivery after previous CS (p=0.0000), they more often believed that free access to epidural analgesia and the presence of a chosen partner in the delivery room would decrease the CS rate (p=0.0000). Polish midwives more rarely accept the idea of CS on maternal request (p=0.0012) and were convinced that free access to epidural analgesia could decrease the rate of CS (p=0.0479). In Poland parturients more often accepted CS on maternal request than obstetricians and midwives (p=0.0000). In Ukrainian population midwives and obstetricians more often accepted possibility of natural delivery after previous CS (p=0.0010). According connected with delivery in Poland parturients returned lower scores on the A-State scale (p=0.0000), but higher scores on the A-Trait scale (p=0.0067).

Conclusions: There are some differences in Polish and Ukrainian obstetricians, midwives and parturients in respect of: - vaginal delivery after CS, - epidural analgesia, - CS on request, - anxiety connected with labour. The above may to some extend explain the difference in Cs rate in two countries.