The Journal of

Abstract

Introduction: Childbirth is considered as a crisis in the life of women because it has physical, social, psychological, cultural and psychological dimensions. Securing, providing, maintaining and improving the health of mothers and children as a vulnerable group is important in society. Therefore, promoting the natural labor at all levels of the health system has been considered as the basic policy.

Methods: In this descriptive study, the participants were 130 nulliparous women in their third trimester of pregnancy who had referred to health centers of Yazd in 2013. Samples were selected by random sampling and data were collected by a researcher-made questionnaire in 4 parts the validity and reliability of which had been confirmed. The collected data were analyzed by SPSS 18 and indicators of mean and standard deviation were determined. The relationship between structural and demographic variables were analyzed using Mann-Whitney, Kruskal-Wallis and Chi-square tests.

Results: In this study, the mean age of the women was 24.36 ± 3.73 and their mean gestational age was 31.53 ± 2.35. The intention of 26.2% of the participants was cesarean delivery and 73.8% normal delivery. There was significant difference between intended delivery method and perceived benefits (p=0.001), perceived barrier (p=0.001), self efficacy (p=0.001) and perceived susceptibility (p=o.oo2). There was no significant difference between intended delivery method and perceived severity (p=0.505) and knowledge (p=0.756).

Conclusion:The results showed that HBM can bear on the intention of women. Therefore, there is need for an educational program based on the findings .