[Practices in the care of the low-risk delivery in hospitals in southern Chile].
BACKGROUND
A relevant component to achieve high quality of care is the implementation of evidence based practices.


OBJECTIVE
To assess in two maternities in the South of Chile, the use of evidence based practices in labour and delivery care.


METHODS
In two hospitals, 205 women after delivery were interviewed. Eleven forms of care were selected from the classification provided by the WHO Reproductive Health Library, four as beneficial forms of care and seven as forms of care likely to be harmful.


RESULTS
Beneficial forms of care were used between 17 to 46% and forms likely to be harmful between 17 and 98%. No association among the use of the practices and some maternal characteristics, such as age, parity and years on school, were found. Women interpretation about benefits of the practices is not in agreement with the evidence provided by the trials.


CONCLUSIONS
A low adherence to evidence based practices was observed since some practices of proven benefit are poorly used and many practices likely to be harmful are highly used. There is a need to look for strategies aimed at the better use of evidences based practices considering among these strategies women empowerment.
Contreras García
Yolanda
Y
Departamento de Obstetricia y Puericultura, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Concepción, Chile. ycontre@udec.cl
Olavaria Bennett
Sonia
S
Pérez
Sánchez Mónica
SM
Haemmerli Díaz
Paulina
P
Cafferata
María L
ML
Belizán
José M
JM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D019090:Case Management / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002677:Chile / Q000453:epidemiology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D036861:Delivery, Obstetric / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019317:Evidence-Based Medicine; D005260:Female; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007743:Labor, Obstetric; D010298:Parity; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011247:Pregnancy; D011253:Pregnancy in Adolescence; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012306:Risk; D012494:Sampling Studies; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014944:World Health Organization