Iranian midwives' attitudes and beliefs toward physiological childbirth: a cross-sectional study

Background The significant role of midwives in providing labor and delivery care underscores the necessity of the identification of attitudes and beliefs of these groups of maternity care providers toward physiological childbirth. The purpose of the current study was to describe midwives' attitudes and beliefs toward physiological childbirth and identify its related factors. Methods This cross-sectional study was carried out on 200 midwives working in the labor and delivery wards of selected hospitals in an urban area of Tehran, Iran, through the continuous sampling method from May to July 2018. The data were collected using a two-part demographic characteristic form and Midwives' Attitudes and Beliefs Questionnaire-Revised toward physiological childbirth. Data analysis was performed in SPSS software (version 25). The significance level was set at P < 0.05. Results The mean score of midwives' attitudes and beliefs toward physiological childbirth were 119.90 with a standard deviation of 9.30. Moreover, of the different domains of Midwives' Attitudes and Beliefs Questionnaire-Revised, the women's experience of birth (78.53) and the medical model conflict (51.05) obtained the highest and lowest scores, respectively. According to the multiple linear regression model analysis, the total mean score of midwives' attitudes and beliefs toward physiological childbirth was significantly correlated with the level of education and interest in the profession (P < 0.05). Midwives with a master degree obtained higher scores (4.32) in terms of attitudes and beliefs toward physiologic childbirth, compared to those with an associate or bachelor degree. Also, there were 0.09 increases in the attitude and belief score of midwives per one score increase in their interest in the profession. It can be concluded that these two variables explained 16% of the variation in the scores of midwives' attitudes and beliefs to physiological childbirth. Conclusion The results of this study showed that midwives with higher levels of education and more interest in their profession had more positive attitudes and beliefs toward physiological childbirth. Therefore, it is necessary to motivate midwives to obtain higher levels of education and increase their interest in the profession to promote physiological childbirth.