Opinions of the Midwives Working in Labour Wards regarding Skin-to-Skin Contact at Birth: A Descriptive Study

Aim: Despite the evidence suggesting the positive impact of the immediate mother-newborn Skin-to-Skin Contact (SCC), it has not yet been adopted to use for healthy newborn in Iran. No study has explained the reasons. This study aimed to survey midwives' opinions about the predisposing factors in SCC at birth in Tehran hospitals in 2014. Method: The samples, in this cross sectional descriptive study, were 292 midwives who worked in labour wards, and a multi- stage cluster sampling was applied. First we applied stratified and simple random approaches. Then they were classified into educational, social security, and private groups. Data collection instrument was a self- developed questionnaire consisting of 9 demographic characteristics and 38 items concerning the predisposing factors in SCC. We applied face/content validity and item impact method for the instrument's validity. For assessing the internal consistency of the instrument, Cronbach's alpha coefficient was used. All statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS-18. Findings: The findings showed that 95.5% of the midwives possessed good knowledge of SSC, 93.2% had positive attitudes, 96.6% believed in SSC effects, and 94.9% had a good self-efficacy perception. The Cronbach‟s alpha coefficient of the 38-item instrument showed excellent internal consistency (α=0.88), and it was valid and reliable to measure predisposing factors in SSC. Conclusion: The knowledge and attitudes of conducting SSC at birth were evaluated at “good” and “positive”, respectively. Therefore, we suggest further analytic studies to determine how these factors could affect on midwife behaviour.