Nurses' knowledge of traditional Chinese postpartum customs.

This study was conducted to determine nurses' and postpartum women's knowledge of and attitudes toward the traditional Chinese custom of 1-month confinement following delivery, to discover factors influencing the attitudes, and to analyze the correlation between them. After a descriptive and inferential analysis of 173 questionnaires (121 recent mothers and 52 nurses), a significant difference was found in the women's and nurses' scores for knowledge of the postpartum confinement custom, with postpartum women scoring higher than the nursing staff on average. Both groups held positive attitudes toward the traditional custom. Attitudes and level of knowledge were positively correlated. Results of this study can serve as a reference for in-service nursing education, which should include information about traditional postpartum customs.