Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of Labor Analgesia Amongst Obstetric Residents: A Cross-Sectional Survey

Labor analgesia plays a crucial role in ensuring a comfortable and positive birthing experience. It provides physiological benefits to both the mother and the child. Knowledge, awareness, and communication between the anesthesiologist and the obstetrician are essential for the safe conduct of labor analgesia. We conducted this cross-sectional online survey amongst obstetric residents to assess their knowledge, attitude, and practices of labor analgesia.

A structured questionnaire consisting of 19 questions was circulated amongst obstetric residents of various hospitals via electronic mode of communication. The responses were analyzed using statistical methods.

Among the obstetric residents that we surveyed, 75.7% of them only sometimes employed labor analgesia for their patients. The most commonly employed methods of pain relief are opioids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID). Most of them feel that pain-free labor is necessary because it makes the whole labor process a pleasurable one. Labor analgesia was mostly advocated at patients' request and demand. The barrier to using labor analgesia was most commonly found to be the non-availability of labor analgesia services.

Despite the increasing awareness of labor analgesia there still lies a gap between the attitude toward it and the practice of it. Further education to rectify the misconceptions and barriers needs to be taken for providing beneficial services to pregnant females.