Study of the effects of Behavioral Intention Model education on reducing the cesarean rate among pregnant women of Khomeiny-Shahr, Isfahan, in 2006

Background: The cesarean section rate is very high and is increasing in most countries
including Iran. Being a major surgery, the cesarean section may have dangerous side effects and
even can be rarely fetal. During recent years, in most developed countries there have been many
attempts to reduce the cesarean rate using education and other interfering methods. In our country
it seems that the efforts with this regard have not been significant. The goal of the present study was
to evaluate the effects of Behavioral Intention Model (BIM) education on reducing the cesarean
rate among pregnant women.
Methods and Materials: In this interventional study, 140 women at their first-time pregnancy
and in 3rd trimester, where chosen in the winter of 2005, using simple random sampling method;
they were divided into case and control groups. After pretest using a questionnaire in both groups,
BIM was employed for the test group, followed by a post test performance in both groups. The
collected data were analyzed by T-paired, independent T & chi-square methods.
Results: The results showed significant differences between case and control groups in the level
of knowledge, evaluation of results, attitude & behaviors (p<0.001)
Conclusion: According to the results, it can be concluded that BIM is effective on increasing or
improving the knowledge, evaluation of results, attitude, strengthening the intention and behavior
of the pregnant women. It is, therefore, suggested to use this method and other systematic education
for pregnant women to decrease the rate of unnecessary cesarean.