Knowledge and Use of Partograph among Obstetric Care Givers in a Sample of Hospitals in Baghdad-2017.

Background: Proper management of active stage of labor during child birth by obstetric care givers will reduce the complications and adverse outcomes which can happen, this is can be achieved by the use of partograph which serves as most important, cost effective tool that provides visual assessment of labor progress in relation to time. Objectives: To assess the knowledge and use of the partograph among obstetric caregivers in monitoring of labor and determine the factors that impede its use among them. Methodology: A cross-sectional study with analytic element was conducted in period from the first of May to the end of August, 2017. A convenient sample of data were collected from ten hospitals from Al-Krakh and Al-Resafa sides of Baghdad city where obstetric care providers that attend labour cases were interviewed using structured questionnaire Results: A sample of 300 obstetric care givers was interviewed during the study period. Most of them (97%) were aware of partograph. 39% and 39.7% showed fair and good level of knowledge respectively. The percentage of doctors who used the partograph was (58.4%). The knowledge and use of the partograph was higher in teaching hospitals than general hospitals. Conclusion: The study revealed that nearly all the participants (doctors, midwives and nurses) knew what the partograph was and the majority of obstetric providers of care had good knowledge about the partograph while its use confined to the doctors only that more than half of them reported its use in addition to higher knowledge and use of partograph in teaching than general hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]