English (OpenAlex)
BACKGROUND: Women giving birth for the first time may experience fear of childbirth. The study was conducted to determine the impact of prenatal education, individual counseling, and labor support on fear of childbirth among primigravid women, as well as to identify the relationship between perception of supportive care and birth experience and satisfaction among women undergoing vaginal birth. METHODS: The research was conducted with 151 pregnant women using the “single-group pretest–post-test design”, one of the pre-experimental designs. Data were collected using the “Sociodemographic Data Form”, the “Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire- W-DEQ Version A”, the “W-DEQ Version B”, the “Birth Satisfaction Scale Revised-BSS-R”, and the “Scale of Women's Perception of Supportive Care Given During Labor- SWPSC” Descriptive statistics were presented as frequency, percentage, and mean values. Independent samples t-test and one-way analysis of variance were performed to analyze group differences. Regression analysis was conducted to determine supportive care effects on BSS-R and W-DEQ B scores. Solutions were obtained using the Newey–West algorithm to meet the model's assumptions. This study was written using the STROBE checklist. RESULTS: Of the pregnant women included in the study, 72.2% underwent cesarean section, while 27.8% had a vaginal birth. Labor started spontaneously in 48.6% of pregnant women who underwent cesarean section and in 95.2% of pregnant women who had a vaginal birth . A statistically significant difference was found between the W-DEQ A pretest and post-test scores (p < 0.05). A significant negative correlation was found between W-DEQ B and SWPSC scores, explaining 29.5% of the variance (r = −0.295, p = 0.03). According to the model, SWPSC scores explained 36.5% of the variance in BSS-R scores and 29.7% in W-DEQ B scores. CONCLUSION: Prenatal pregnancy education and individual counseling provided to primigravid women significantly reduced the level of fear of childbirth. The labor support provided to women undergoing vaginal delivery increased their perception of supportive care and reduced their fear of childbirth.