Wafaa Mostafa Ahmed Gamel¹, Amal Sarhan Eldesokey Genedy¹, Hanan Elzeblawy Hassan^2,

Background: Over 30.000 maternal deaths were referred to as postpartum sepsis; which consider as the third most frequent cause of approximately 290.000 maternal deaths worldwide. Puerperal sepsis is an important public health problem which is а leading cause of maternal death, especially, in developing countries due to the lack of knowledge on preventive methods. This study aimed to investigate the impact of puerperal sepsis self-care nursing guidelines on women's knowledge and practice among primiparous postnatal mothers. Subjects and Methods: An interventional quasi-experimental, pre-posttest, research design was carried out at the postpartum unit of Fayoum General and University Hospitals on 100 primiparous women. Data were collected using а structured interview questionnaire. Results: There is а highly significant improvement of the studied women’s knowledge regarding puerperal sepsis after introducing of the puerperal sepsis self-care-nursing-guidelines compared with pre-intervention (p<0.001). There are no significant differences in the total score of knowledge about socio-demographic variables (p>0.05). However, improvement of women’s knowledge regardless of their demographic variables was noticed in both immediately-intervention and one-month after the intervention. Conclusion: The primiparous-postnatal mothers who received and compliance with the guidelines regarding puerperal sepsis and its prevention had high knowledge and practices score in the post-test of the intervention program than in pre-test (P≤0.01), which shows the effectiveness of puerperal sepsis self-care nursing guidelines in increasing the knowledge score of primiparous post-natal mothers regarding the prevention of puerperal sepsis. Recommendations: Such guideline needs to be given while the antenatal period also and thus promote healthy post-partum period. The study can be replicated in а larger sample, in different settings.

puerperаl sepsis, self-cаre, nursing guidelines, knowledge and prаctices