Accuracy of purple line to monitor labour progress: Longitudinal study

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Background: Precise evaluation of labour progresses can help mothers to be consulted on time and decrease maternal and neonatal morbidities. The purple line is non invasive methods to assess labour progress. The current study aimed to assign appearance percentage of the purple line during the first stage of labour, as well as the accuracy of the purple line to predict labour progress. Design: Longitudinal design was adopted. A purposive sampling method has been employed to recruit 120 labouring women at the obstetric department in El-Nabawy El Mohandes Hospital, Fayoum. Three tools of data collection were used: structure interviewing questionnaire, purple line observation record and partograph. Results: revealed that, the purple line appears among about four fifth of the total sample. A medium positive association was found among the purple line length, dilatations of the cervix and fetal stations. The purple line appearance in the expectation of labour progress had 87.91% sensitivity, 39.53% specificity and 85.25% accuracy. In addition, the purple line was more significantly in a spontaneous labouring woman and no significant association between parity, women age, BMI, fetal birth weight and the existence of the purple lines. Conclusion: The purple line is useful in assisting the health care providers in assessing and determining labour progress and lessen the number of vaginal examinations, particularly at consideration of females who refuse or feel that the examining intrusive. Recommendation: Integration between vaginal examination and purple line to evaluate the labour progress to reduce the vaginal examination rate and its risk. Further research still needed to identify the accuracy of other noninvasive methods to assess the labour progress.