A study to evaluate the effectiveness of chilled cabbage leaves application for relief of breast engorgement in volunteered postnatal mothers who are admitted in maternity ward of selected hospital in belgaum

Abstract

Breast engorgement is a condition that affects breastfeeding mothers early in the postpartum. The discomfort and tenderness as a result of the engorgement is a major contributing factor to the early cessation of breastfeeding. Many treatments for breast engorgement have been attempted and explored. Very few researches have been conducted to monitor the effect of cabbage leaves application on breast engorgement. A study on the effectiveness of chilled cabbage leaves can contribute to providing evidence for introducing the intervention in clinical practice thus, the researcher conducted this study. The objectives of the study were to assess the pain and severity of breast engorgement experienced by postnatal mothers before and after application of chilled cabbage leaves and to evaluate the effectiveness of chilled cabbage leaves application for relief of breast engorgement among postnatal mothers. The research approach used for the study was the evaluative approach. The study was conducted using a one group pre test post test pre experimental design. The independent variables of the study were cabbage leaves application for relief of breast engorgement and the dependent variables were the pain and severity. Wiedenbachs clinical nursing practice –A helping Art theory was used as a conceptual framework for this study. The study was conducted on 30 postnatal mothers having breast engorgement admitted in maternity wards of KLE Dr Prabhakar kore hospital Belguam using convenient sampling technique. Data was collected by using a breast engorgement pain and severity rating scale. The hypothesis for the study was Ho1: There is no significant difference between the mean pre treatment scores and mean post treatment scores of breast engorgement of postnatal mothers received cabbage leaves application at 0.05 level of significance. The data was tabulated and analyzed in terms of objectives of the study, using descriptive and inferential statistics. The major findings of the study on effectiveness of chilled cabbage leaves application for breast engorgement on reducing pain and severity of breast engorgement among postnatal mothers showed the mean pre test score of postnatal women with breast engorgement before application of chilled cabbage leaves (14.86) is more than the mean post test score (1.33) after application of cabbage leaves on postnatal mothers with breast engorgement. Wilcoxon signed rank test shows that there is a significant difference between pre and post treatment scores Z=4.792 P<0.001. Hence chilled cabbage leaves application is effective in reducing pain and severity of breast engorgement.