Labor Support Research Articles

BRICS and the USA: Labor and Employment Support During and After the COVID-19 Pandemic

This article concerns labor and employment support policies undertaken by national governments in 2020-2022, during the global COVID-19 pandemic. It is focused on the experience of the BRICS countries but also highlights the labor and employment support policies in the USA, a country with one of the largest economies and advanced economic development. The COVID-19 outbreak has posed unprecedented challenges for all countries. The key objectives of all governments were to save human lives and prevent the spread of the infection. While the containment measures used by different countries were mostly similar, the programs and policies aiming to support workers were country-specific. The authors examine two types of labor support measures aimed at mitigation of the COVID-19 consequences: direct cash transfers to sustain workers’ incomes and business support activities. The analysis reveals that the success of these measures could depend, first, on how timely they were, second, whether they were in line with the long-term objectives in labour market development and, third, on the quality of governments’ collaboration with businesses and trade unions. The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a long shadow. As the BRICS countries plan to focus their labor and employment policies on high-quality jobs, human-centered development, inclusion and protection of workers’ rights they should address the consequences of COVID-19 together with other challenges, such as technological transformation, climate change and demographic issues.

중증장애인 근로지원인의 역할갈등 및 역할모호성이 이직의도에 미치는 영향

This study examined the prevalence of role conflict and role ambiguity among labor support workers with severe disabilities in the labor support service system, and their influence on burnout that leads to turnover intention. A survey was conducted on labor support personnel in 15 labor support service organizations in Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam, and a total of 232 copies were collected and analyzed. The collected data was subjected to frequency analysis, descriptive statistical analysis, and correlation analysis using SPSS 26.0, and statistical significance was verified using Process Macro 4. The results of the study were as follows: First, the higher the perception of role conflict among labor support workers, the more the positive (+) effects on job burnout and turnover intention. Role conflict was found to have a positive (+) effect on burnout, but it did not have a significant effect on turnover intention. Second, job burnout partially mediated the relationship between role conflict and turnover intention, and completely mediated the relationship between role ambiguity and turnover intention. Based on these results, policy and practical measures were proposed to resolve the role conflict and role ambiguity experienced by labor support workers during services delivery in the future and to ensure a continuous and stable professional life for disabled workers.

Evidence-Based Guidelines for Labor Support that Promote Vaginal Birth.

Dr. Samantha L. Bernstein is Assistant Professor at the MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston, MA and an MCN Editorial Board Member. Dr. Bernstein can be reached via email at [email protected] The author declares no conflicts of interest.

New Directions in Cognitive Grammar and Style

New Directions in Cognitive Grammar and Style

The relationship between attitude and self-efficacy of labor support with supportive behaviors from the perspective of midwives

Background and aimEffective support given by a midwife during labor and childbirth is associated with numerous positive outcomes. Yet the delivery of such support can be hindered by negative workplace cultures. The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between attitude and self-efficacy of labor support and labor supportive behaviors from the perspectives of midwives working in Iran.MethodsMidwives (n = 213) employed in the labor wards of selected hospitals in an urban area of Iran participated in this cross-sectional study. Participants were recruited via convenience sampling from December 2016 to September 2017. The data were collected using a personal characteristics tool, the Labor Support Questionnaire, the Self-efficacy Labor Support Scale, and attitudes toward the Labor Support Questionnaire. Descriptive statistics along with multiple linear regression was used for data analysis.ResultsParticipants had a supportive behavior score of 74.98 for mean (SD ± 13.39). The informational support dimension had the highest reported score of the supportive behaviors, whereas the tangible support dimension had the lowest score. The mean scores of attitude and self-efficacy toward labor support were 24.79 (SD ± 4.14) and 79.83 (SD ± 13.82). There were also statistically significant correlations between attitude and self-efficacy, and labor support behaviors and its dimensions. Multiple linear regression analysis results indicated that interests in occupation, attitude, and self-efficacy were predictors of labor supportive behaviors.ConclusionMidwives’ level of interest in the profession, attitude, and self-efficacy of labor support were significantly associated with labor support behaviors. Thus midwives’ interest in their profession, along with their attitudes and self-efficacy could usefully be developed to enhance their supportive behaviors during labor.

Frank Porter Graham: Southern Liberal, Citizen of the World by William A. Link

Reviewed by: Frank Porter Graham: Southern Liberal, Citizen of the World by William A. Link Tracy Campbell Frank Porter Graham: Southern Liberal, Citizen of the World. By William A. Link. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021. Pp. xii, 343. $35.00, ISBN 978-1-4696-6493-4.) North Carolinian Frank Porter Graham occupies a lofty perch in twentieth-century southern history, compared by some of his admirers to Gandhi and Christ. In William A. Link’s well-researched biography, Graham emerges as more complex and human, and his career exposes the limitations of white liberalism in the post–World War II South. After graduating from the University of North Carolina (UNC) in 1909, Graham earned an M.A. in 1916 at Columbia University under William A. Dunning and then attended the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics. Although known affectionately as “Dr. Frank,” Graham never finished his Ph.D., but that did not keep him from returning to UNC to teach history. In 1930, Graham was president of the university, and during the height of the Great Depression, he battled legislative budget cuts and countered attacks on academic freedom. His outspoken support of labor causes made him many powerful enemies throughout the state. In 1938, at the Southern Conference for Human Welfare, Graham proclaimed racial justice was “the primary test of American democracy and Christianity” (p. 106). Throughout his life, Graham sought to bridge divides through education and religion, while avoiding federal directives or legislation. A frustrated John Hope Franklin, like so many others who witnessed Graham’s focus on evolutionary change, was unimpressed. “Graham’s reasonableness, sweet as it was, was on one side. On his side,” Franklin recalled (p. 111). During World War II, Graham served on the National War Labor Board, where, in a crucial 1943 case, he supported equal pay for equal work. He used the occasion to proclaim that the nation should celebrate “‘the vigor and variety of its differences’” and “refuse to become a ‘stronghold of bigots,’” but he retreated when the opportunity arose to further loosen the grip of segregation (p. 147). After the war, President Harry S. Truman appointed Graham to the President’s Commission on Civil Rights. Graham dissented from the committee’s landmark 1947 report, To Secure These Rights, because he opposed federal efforts to ensure voting rights and to pass an antilynching bill. Instead, he encouraged a tepid philosophy of “nondiscrimination, not nonsegregation” (p. 166). In the end, Graham’s attempt to reconcile gradualism and goodwill with the reality of white supremacy satisfied no one. When U.S. senator J. Melville Broughton died in 1949, Governor W. Kerr Scott appointed Graham to fill the seat. Link describes Graham’s 1950 campaign to remain in the Senate as “weak and overconfident” and the candidate himself as “disinterested” (p. 205). Graham relied on his reputation for personal integrity to overcome charges of communist subversion. He won more votes than his opponent, Willis Smith, in the Democratic primary but fell short of the required majority. In the runoff election, Smith’s supporters, in a pattern that became all too common, warned that Graham favored Blacks working and living alongside “your wives and daughters.” They urged white people to “Wake Up!” if they wished to avoid a “mingling of the races” (p. 211). [End Page 182] Graham lost the race by 19,000 votes and never ran for elective office again. Afterward, during his appointment as a United Nations mediator, Graham failed to resolve a dispute in Kashmir between Pakistan and India. When he died in 1972, one friend eulogized that the martyred Graham may have “lived too long” (p. 250). Link’s well-crafted and thoughtful account can be paired with his excellent biography of North Carolina senator Jesse Helms, Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism (New York, 2008). The differing tactics and political trajectories of Graham and Helms tell us much about the contours of southern history and American politics since the 1950s and provide a timely context for understanding our current dilemmas. Tracy Campbell University of Kentucky Copyright © 2023 The Southern Historical Association

보건소 공무원의 감정노동, 사회적 지원이 사회심리적 스트레스에 미치는 영향

The purpose of this study is to examine the positive and negative factors that affect the socio-psychological stress experienced by the sudden surge in workload due to the COVID-19 pandemic, within the framework of the image of civil servants that emphasizes the spirit of service to the public. This is a descriptive survey to identify the emotional labor and social support of public health center officials during the COVID-19 outbreak, and to identify factors that influence these variables on social and psychological stress. The survey was conducted from May 31, 2022 to June 18, 2022. In order to analyze the collected data, general characteristics, emotional labor, social support, and sociopsychological stress levels were analyzed by number and literacy rate, mean and standard deviation. Difference tests according to general characteristics were analyzed by t-test and ANOVA, and post-hoc tests were analyzed by Shceff test. To understand the correlation, Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis were used to determine the degree of influence on psychosocial stress.
 As a result of this study, emotional labor scored an average score of 3.23 out of 5, social support scored an average of 3.77 out of 5, and psychosocial stress was 2.23 out of 4. According to the general characteristics, emotional labor was higher in men than in women, and differences in social support were found in work experience and service area. Social and psychological stress had different effects according to the rank and age. Psychological stress and emotional labor showed a positive correlation and negative correlation with social support, and the relationship between emotional labor and social support was not statistically significant. The factors affecting psychosocial stress were emotional labor, social support, current position, and age, in the order of 36.8% of explanatory power. Based on these research results, it is absolutely necessary to develop a program that can mediate the social and psychological stress of public officials in a situation where a new infectious disease such as Corona 19 may appear or reappear.

Access to mutual labour support in agriculture: Implications for maize productivity and efficiency of farmers in northern Ghana

ABSTRACT Access to cheap labour affects Ghanaian smallholder farmers significantly. Such access can be enhanced through mutual labour support. However, it has become necessary to explore how this form of collective action affects farmers’ productivity and efficiency. In this study, the impact of access to mutual labour support on productivity and technical efficiency was estimated using data collected from 592 smallholder maize farmers in Northern Ghana. The study uses a translog stochastic production frontier model, while accounting for sample selection bias that may emanate from both observable and unobservable household characteristics. Farmers with access to mutual labour support are significantly more productive and technically efficient than those without, with mean technical efficiency in the range of 0.62–0.71 for farmers with access to mutual labour support and 0.55–0.60 for those without access. Sex, education, spraying machine ownership, farm size, extension visits, access to credit, and membership of farmer-based organisation are significant determinants of access to mutual labour support. Policies to help farmer groups and extension agents promote mutual labour support accessibility among farmers are recommended.

Благосостояние населения Дальневосточного федерального округа: I кв. 2019 г. – II кв. 2023 г.

Based on statistical, analytical and expert information, monitoring of the socio-economic situation and analysis of social indicators (income, wages, pensions, unemployment, migration, housing) characterizing the standard of living and well-being of the population of the Russian Far East in the period from Q1 2019 to Q2 2023 are presented. Using statistical indicators of Rosstat, a comparative assessment of the welfare index generated for 85 constituent entities of the Russian Federation was carried out, with a focus on the Far Eastern Federal District. It is shown that during the period of active shock impacts, the Far Eastern territories, thanks to state support of labor markets both during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2021) and during the period of the influence of international sanctions (2022 – the first half of 2023), largely retained their positions in terms of well-being, despite the fall in real incomes of the population. A slight reduction in the gap between the Far Eastern regions in terms of the welfare index still does not lead to a smoothing out of inequality in the social space of the macroregion

Progressive politics and populism: Classes of labour and rural–urban political sociology—An introduction to the special issue

AbstractThis special issue analyses the prospects for a progressive politics against right‐wing populism and capitalism. Taken as a whole, its articles underline the need to understand progressive movements as encompassing agrarian, rural, and urban settings and as socially rooted among labourers and petty commodity producers that do not accumulate (classes of labour), which includes the majority of farmers. Most of the world's rural population now reproduce themselves to some degree in towns and cities, which necessitates further development of a rural–urban political sociology. Articles in the special issue discuss existing and potential organizations and networks of classes of labour. They point to the political potential of migrant populations to erode the social divisions of race, ethnicity, and nationality that capitalism and right‐wing populism construct to defend their interests. They contribute to understanding of why some members of classes of labour support racist nationalist populisms that pit them against fellow members of classes of labour. And they show why national contexts matter. Forms of capitalist government, including varieties of populism, are linked to world‐historical dynamics of accumulation and reproduction, as well as racialized class relations, and constrain routes to progressive politics in different ways. Analysis of them can inform counter‐strategies.

Female birth companion for labor support: Perception and experience of health care providers

Background: The International Childbirth Initiatives aims to provide a respectful, evidence-based, and positive birthing experience to women. So, it is important that the women are counseled well before, during the antenatal period, and during labor and are given a choice of companion, doctor, hospital, and choice of her alternative birthing position. The aim was to assess the perceptions and experience of healthcare providers with the presence of a female Birth Companion (BC) for labor support. Method: A mixed-method observational study was conducted. The laboring women included in the study were mostly from rural areas, as the tertiary care hospital is situated in a rural area. Perceptions and experiences of health providers about 213 BCs were collected. The validated questionnaire was used to assess the perceptions of health providers through Google form. The information was downloaded as a Comma Separated Values (CSV) file. Data was analysed using Microsoft Excel. Result: On evaluating the responses to each BC, 92.95% senior nurses were highly beneficial, 4.6% were somewhat beneficial, and 2.34% were not beneficial. The junior nurses were of the opinion that 79.81% were highly beneficial, 16.9% were somewhat beneficial, and 3.28% were not beneficial. Junior resident doctors said that 77.46% were highly beneficial, 19.71% were somewhat beneficial, and 2.81% were not beneficial. The senior resident doctors said that they were highly beneficial 86.38%, 11.73% were somewhat beneficial, and 1.87% were not beneficial. Most healthcare providers' perceived that BC gave physical,emotional support and confidence to laboring women. Some health providers had challenges like rude behavior,inattentiveness, and disturbing behavior of BCs. Conclusion: Most of the BCs during continuous laboring support were highly beneficial as per the perceptions and experience of the health care providers.

Formation of the Pre-Pensioner Segment in the Labor Market: Financial and Management Aspects

The article considers the results of the implementation of the pension reform in Russia in 2018, reflected in changes in labor market indicators according to Rosstat. The purpose of the study is to develop a scientific understanding of the processes of formation of the pre-pensioner segment of the Russian labor market under the influence of its external and internal factors. The authors use methods of statistical, correlation, and regression analyses, the calculation of the average for a certain integral of functions, as well as the method of linear modeling of multiple regression. The study assesses the scientific elaboration of the research topic abroad and in Russia. The issues of financial literacy of the population are analyzed. The financing of the training of pre-retirees in the professional competencies that are currently in demand on the labor market and support for unemployed pre-retirees who are registered with the employment center are considered. The selection of relevant demographic data and a sample labor force survey by age group has been carried out. The total number of pre-pensioners in 2018–2020 has been calculated and their structure according to the status of labor activity in the Russian labor market has been identified. The general dynamic, structural, and gender characteristics of the economic activity of pre-pensioners in the labor market are analyzed. The demand for pre-retirees by type of economic activity in 2019 is assessed. The authors conclude that there is a tendency to reduce the share of the pre-pensioner segment in the labor market after reaching the project retirement age threshold from 10.88% to 9.76%. The employment rate in this group of the population will be 66%. The study has established that the demand for pre-pensioners by type of economic activity in the labor market is 1.13 times higher for women than for men. A methodical approach has been developed to analyze the results of assessing the demand for state support measures by pre-pensioners. The article analyzes the influence of financial and social measures of state support for pre-pensioners on increasing their labor activity and competitiveness in the labor market. The results of the study can be used by the authorities to substantiate the assessment of the effectiveness of financing the measures they take to provide social and economic support to pre-retirees.

KISAH DUA TANAH PERDIKAN: PERUBAHAN STATUS WILAYAH BEBAS PAJAK DI KERAJAAN MATARAM ISLAM ABAD VIII DAN KERAJAAN SIAM ABAD XX

Perdikan land or tax-free land in Indonesia and Thailand is used for religious purposes. This study aims to determine the change in tax-exempt status in Indonesia and Thailand, especially in the Islamic Mataram Kingdom and Siam Kingdom. This research used historical methods consisting of topic selection, source collection, source criticism, interpretation, and writing. The result shows the existence of tax-free areas in Indonesia and Thailand has been going on for a long time. However, tax-free land in Indonesia was revoked after independence because it was considered injustice. Differently, tax-free land in Thailand still exists but no longer receives forced labor support from the king, replaced with wage labor because of the money economy influence that Chinese trader brought and for the abolition of slavery. In conclusion, tax-free lands in these two countries have different fates due to social and economic changes.

FREEZE! The Grassroots Movement to Halt the Arms Race and End the Cold War by Henry Richard Maar III

Henry Richard Maar III gives the reader the most definitive study yet of the nuclear weapons freeze movement and its impact on the arms race in the 1980s. (Full disclosure: As the chief foreign policy adviser to Senator Edward M. Kennedy from 1977 to 1984, I wrote the U.S. Senate resolution favoring a nuclear freeze, which Senator Kennedy introduced jointly with Senator Mark O. Hatfield, a Republican from Oregon.) The book provides broad discussion of the U.S. and European peace movements, covering the policies of the Reagan administration, the role of Congress, debates within the Catholic Church, broader cultural and political trends, and the outcomes in national politics and U.S.-Soviet diplomacy.Maar traces the freeze movement's evolution from a grassroots movement to a national vehicle countering the Reagan administration. He is especially persuasive in his discussion of policy and politics. He convincingly highlights the freeze movement's catalytic role in helping to transform President Ronald Reagan's rhetoric, at least, from nuclear weapons to disarmament advocacy. Maar also tells a compelling story of how congressional leaders, including Senators Kennedy and Hatfield and Representatives Edward Markey (D-MA) and Silvio Conte (R-MA), were able to harness a more diffuse national movement behind a more focused congressional initiative. The book also captures well the irony, even the hypocrisy, of congressional support for the freeze while simultaneously voting in favor of new weapons systems such as the B-1 bomber and the Strategic Defense Initiative.Maar acknowledges the tactical compromises the freeze movement found itself having to make with its political supporters, but he underestimates the contribution of the latter to elite support for the freeze. He gives little attention, for example, to how widely Senators Kennedy and Hatfield were able to garner academic, labor, professional, religious, think tank, and business support, which played a large role in transforming U.S. arms control policies in the 1980s.Maar also overstates his argument that the freeze movement played a major role in ending the Cold War. Although the movement did affect U.S. policies, far more decisive were such factors as the Soviet war in Afghanistan, anti-Communism in Eastern Europe, and the bankruptcy of the Communist system in the Soviet Union itself, not to mention the emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev.In one of the book's best chapters, Maar examines the impact of nuclear weapons fears on political and popular culture in the 1980s. From Jonathan Schell's book The Fate of the Earth (1982) to the seminal made-for-TV film The Day After (1983), with references to comics, cartoon strips, Hollywood films, rock performances, and television shows, Maar vividly re-creates the spirit of the age and the freeze's place in it.The book is most effective, and moving, in its description of the rise and fall of the nuclear freeze movement itself. Maar achieves his goal of “decentering the narrative away from a top-down focus on the personalities of statesmen.” In the great tradition of U.S. popular movements, the freeze was perhaps most impressive as an expression of the grassroots, and Maar tells that story exceedingly well.

Potential mechanisms of government incentives encouraging grandparental labor

Subject. This article discusses the issues related to the family policy in Russia. Objectives. The article aims to improve the mechanism of government stimulation of labor for the upbringing of children and grandchildren. Methods. For the study, I used sociological, economic, and social and economic approaches. Results. The article proposes a mechanism for government support of grandparental labor, combining elements of material and moral encouragements. Relevance. The results of the study can be useful to public authorities responsible for the demographic and family policies making.

The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic Socialist Feminist by Donna Haverty-Stacke

Reviewed by: The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic Socialist Feminist by Donna Haverty-Stacke Janine Giordano Drake The Fierce Life of Grace Holmes Carlson: Catholic Socialist Feminist. By Donna Haverty-Stacke. New York: New York University Press, 2021. 312 pp. $50.00. In the Cold War-era narratives of U.S. history that predominated the twentieth century, radical socialism and Christianity were inherently opposed to one another. In this framework, Dorothy Day's [End Page 79] Catholic Worker Movement appeared as an exception to the rule. And yet, Donna Haverty-Stacke's well-written biography of Grace Holmes Carlson, the Catholic Trotsykist, psychology professor, political candidate, outlaw, and Catholic university reformer, reminds us that Dorothy Day is no exception. Carlson, too, had a foot in both the political left and the churches as she sought to change both Christian definitions of social justice and patriotic definitions of American democracy. Grace was raised in Catholic schools under the leadership of Archbishop John Ireland, a fierce Progressive-Era advocate for labor justice. She excelled academically and went on to pursue a doctorate in Psychology at the University of Minnesota, where she also met her husband, Gilbert. For her, it felt like a seamless transition from supporting union struggles during the Depression to carrying on this work within the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) of the 1940s. Within the SWP orbit, Grace and her sister Dorothy found their voices as political leaders. Grace ran for public office and, after she was forced to resign her teaching position due to her socialist leanings, she worked for the party. This decision took a strain on both her marriage and her faith, and for a period she stopped calling herself a Catholic and had a relationship with another man. Yet, less than a decade later and after a brief detention in prison for her political beliefs, Grace decided to leave the party and return to both her husband and what she described as the Catholic Church. In Grace's telling of the story, her return to Catholicism was not a rejection of socialism but an affirmation of a part of her that had always been there. She made a "personal" decision stemming from the death of her father to return to her more spiritual roots. Contrary to some of our presumptions about patriarchy and anti-socialism pervading Catholicism in 1950s, Roman Catholic sisters in Minneapolis gave the former felon sanctuary and respected her expertise and sense of "mission." At St. Mary's Junior College, Grace took on leadership roles in campus ministry. She was also invited to help design a general education curriculum that prepared students for the challenge of committing oneself to social justice, ethics, and truth [End Page 80] while also following a secular vocation. As Haverty-Stacke tells the story, Grace's mature support for a "modern, engaged Catholic activism" was more of a fulfillment of her lifetime of political experiences than a rejection of the Trotyskyist politics of her young adulthood. Moreover, her invitation to Catholic leadership was also a fulfillment of Roman Catholic social and political goals. Grace also traveled and spoke broadly on the value of a Catholic liberal arts education which nurtured Catholics' sense of justice and respect for human beings, and which integrated this with their vocational mission of redeeming and transforming society. One wonders to what extent her ideas inspired Catholic vocational work in other institutions. When, in 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson officially pardoned Grace's felony and restored her voting rights, one wonders who really proved victorious in the culture war between Leftists and American Catholics. In many respects, the interests of the Left and the Roman Catholic Left had become indivisible by 1965. Indeed, perhaps the most significant scholarly contribution of the book is its spotlight on the intimate relationship between Roman Catholicism and left-wing labor politics in the twentieth century. The book leads us to wonder how many Americans who ended up supporting the Socialist Workers' Party were similarly steeped in Catholic labor support throughout the 1910s–1930s, and how many of them also quietly declared victory through the significant shifts in the meaning of "Catholicism" in the 1960s. If Grace...

Effect of childcare teachers' emotional labor, self-comfort ability, and social support on burnout

Effect of childcare teachers' emotional labor, self-comfort ability, and social support on burnout

Perinatal mental healthcare: Developing skills in midwifery students

Midwives have a pivotal role in screening for risk factors for mental illness and psychosocial vulnerabilities in women during the perinatal period. They also have a key responsibility to provide women with the appropriate resources to support their mental wellbeing. Midwives can lack confidence and/or feelings of competence regarding these skills.Care of women in the context of their perinatal mental health is a core midwifery skill that deserves practical learning during pre-registration education, just as the more ‘hands on’ skills such as abdominal palpation, labour and birth support or newborn examination. However, there is limited opportunity for students to gain clinical placement experiences that are specific to perinatal mental health (PMH).This discussion paper describes an innovative teaching and learning project that aimed to improve confidence in students’ ability to conduct screening, support, and referral of women experiencing mental ill health. The project involved the development of an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) and audio visual resources to support learning and teaching and clinical placement. Feedback was collected to inform the refinement of the first OSCE, and to assist in the design of the audio visual resources that are now displayed publicly on the Australian College of Midwives website at https://www.midwives.org.au/Web/Web/Professional-Development/Resources.aspx?hkey=12c2360e-d8b9-4286-8d0a-50aeaeca9702.

Effect of implementing a birth plan on maternal and neonatal outcomes: a randomized controlled trial

BackgroundThe birth plan is an approach for pregnant women to offering their expectations of labor and birth. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of birth plan on maternal and neonatal outcomes.MethodsThis study was a randomized controlled clinical trial performed on 106 pregnant women, 32–36 weeks of pregnancy, referring to Taleghani educational hospital in Tabriz city-Iran. Participants were randomly assigned to the two groups of birth plan and control using a randomized block method. Participants in the birth plan group received the interventions based on the mother's requested birth plan. The birth plan included items of the mother's preferences in labor, mobility, eating and drinking, monitoring, pain relief, drug options, labor augmentation, pushing, amniotomy, episiotomy, infant care, and caesarean section. The control group received routine hospital care. The primary outcomes were childbirth experience and duration of the active phase of labor and the secondary outcomes were support and control in labor, fear of labor, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), postpartum depression, duration of the second and third phases of labor, frequency of vaginal delivery, frequency of admission of newborn in NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit), the mean first and fifth minute Apgar scores. The socio-demographic and obstetrics characteristics questionnaire, Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire (W-DEQ-versions A), and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) were completed at the beginning of the study (at the gestational age of 32–36 weeks). The questionnaire of delivery information, neonatal information, and Delivery Fear Scale (DFS) was completed during and after the delivery. Also, a partogram was completed for all participants by the researcher. The participants in both groups followed up until 4–6 weeks post-delivery, whereby the instruments of Childbirth Experience Questionnaire 2.0 (CEQ2.0), Support and Control In Birth (SCIB) scale, EPDS, and PTSD Symptom Scale 1 (PSS-I) were completed by the researcher through an interview. The independent t-test, the chi-square test, and ANCOVA was used to analyze.ResultsThe mean (SD) of CEQ score was singificnalty higher in in the birth plan group (3.2 ± 0.2) compared to the control (2.1 ± 0.2) (MD = 1.0; 95% CI: 1.1 to 0.9; P˂0.001). Also, the mean (SD) SCIB score in the birth plan group was significantly higher than that of those in the control group (P˂0.001). The mean scores of DFS (P = 0.015), EPDS (P˂0.001), and PTSD (P˂0.001) as well as the frequency of emergency caesarean section (P = 0.007) in the birth plan group were significantly lower than those in the control group.ConclusionThis was the first study to assess the implementation of a birth plan in Iran. Based on the findings, a birth plan improves childbirth experiences; increases perceived support and control in labor; reduces fear of delivery; suppresses psychological symptoms of depression and PTSD, and increases the frequency of vaginal delivery.Trial registration.Iranian Registry of Clinical Trials (IRCT): IRCT20120718010324N58. Date of registration: 07/07/2020; URL: https://en.irct.ir/trial/47007; Date of first registration: 19/07/2020.

Effect of Work–Family Conflict on Three-Child Fertility Intention of Working Women of Reproductive Age under the Background of Active Reproductive Support: The Moderating and Mediating Effects of Anxiety Disorders and Life Stress

The declining fertility rate has become an important social problem. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the potential relationship between work–family conflict (WFC), life stress (LS), generalized anxiety disorders (GAD) and three-child fertility intention (FI) in working women of reproductive age. The data comes from the survey of the 2021 China Family Health Index Survey. The Mplus8.3 software was used to analyze the selected cases of 1103 female workers of childbearing age between 19 and 35 years old, and they all answered the relevant questions about the willingness to have three children. The results showed that work–family conflict had a significant negative impact on three-child fertility intention of working women of reproductive age (β = −0.188, p < 0.001), The mediating effect found that anxiety disorder had a significant mediating effect between work–family conflict and three-child fertility intention of working women of childbearing age. In addition, the effect between work–family conflict and the three-child fertility intention of working women of reproductive age can be mediated through the chain-mediated effect of Life stress and anxiety disorders. At the same time, the regulating effect also found that life stress can effectively regulate the effect of work–family conflict on anxiety disorders. Therefore, it is necessary to alleviate the conflict between work and family to a certain extent, including employers giving women more understanding and care and reducing gender discrimination. In addition, relatives should also provide substantial labor support in family life. They can also rely on the community to establish childcare services, improve student night care services, and reduce the time cost of female education. Thereby alleviating the life stress and anxiety of female employees of childbearing age and improving their willingness to bear children.