Comparison of attitude regarding obstetrical palpation among student nurse midwives studying midwifery nursing at Sikkim

Introduction: A maternal death is widely regarded as one of life’s most tragic outcomes. There is a cruel irony in the death of a woman who is engaged in the act of creating life, and her death is an incomparable loss for any children who are left behind. Such deaths are almost entirely preventable given proper medical surveillance and intervention, and as such maternal mortality is often viewed as a sentinel indicator of the quality of a health care delivery system. Thus future nurses’ attitudes towards Obstetrical palpation are important to research and understand, especially in a country with a high prevalence of maternal death. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to assess the attitude of student nurse midwives towards obstetrical palpation at selected nursing institute of, Sikkim. Hence the present study was planned to assess and compare the attitude towards obstetrical palpation among nursing students from different nursing programe. Methods: A Non experimental survey approach with descriptive comparative research design was used to assess the attitude of student nurse midwives towards obstetrical palpation at Sikkim Manipal College of Nursing, Vinayaka Mission College of Nursing and School of Nursing, STNM hospital Gangtok, Sikkim, India. Data were collected using structured attitude scale for which validity and reliability was ensured. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 92 student nurse midwives who were currently undergoing 3rd yr GNM, 3rd yr B.Sc. Nursing, 4th year B.Sc. Nursing and 1st year PBBSc nursing programme , attended regular classes on obstetrical palpation, available at the time of data collection and willing to participate. Results: The findings revealed that the overall attitude score was found high among the students nurse midwives. In terms of level of attitude score between different nursing programme, 94.1% PBBSc nursing students, were having favorable attitude towards obstetrical palpation as compared to other programme, the reason might be higher side of their age and previous experience. The findings also reveals that the obtained chi square value for students exposure to mass media related to obstetrical palpation (5.478*, P<0.05) and total midwifery hours attended (6.765*, P<0.05) was found significant. Conclusions: The great majority of the students were agreed upon the areas of obstetrical palpation. The attitude of students nurse can be influenced by the information received through other sources on antenatal examination as well as the total number of theory hours attended in Midwifery subject. 39% still performed obstetrical palpation less than ten times throughout the year with quiet a good number of allotted clinical hours. Hence, although the attitude towards obstetrical palpation was favorable, but some weakness still exist which posed as hindrance to its performance.