Comparison of anesthesia professionals' preferences of delivery method with other health professionals

Objective: Work areas and clinical practices have an effect on cesarean rates, which are also high in health professionals. Anestehsia professionals and the health professionals who are far from surgical practices may have different views on delivery methods. In this study, it was aimed to investigate which delivery method between vaginal delivery and cesarean delivery was selected by the anesthesia professionals and the health professionals outside the operating room, and why they selected it.
Material and methods: 137 anesthesia professionals and 151 health professionals who had never worked in the operating room were included in this study. The participants' ages, professions and methods of delivery and reasons were questioned by the survey method.
Results: While 58.3% of all the participants preferred the cesarean delivery method at their first birth, 41.7% preferred vaginal delivery. The preference rates of anesthesia professionals for cesarean delivery (69.9%) were found higher than those of the professionals working outside the operating room (46.6%),(p<0.05). As the reason of preference for cesarean delivery, the option of “not putting the baby at risk” is higher among anesthesia professionals than the professionals outside the operating room (p<0.05). As the reason of vaginal delivery, “more physiological”, “fear of anesthesia and surgery”, “early recovery and desire to breastfeed baby” higher compared to anesthesia professionals (p<0.05).
Conclusions: Knowing, practicing and seeing the anesthesia and surgical procedures every day have given the idea that these practices are simple, comfortable and have low risks, so the cesarean delivery rate has increased in anesthesia professionals.