Effectiveness of Infrared Therapy in Healing of Episiotomy Wound among Postnatal Mothers at Selected Hospital Panipat, Haryana

Ankush Devi; Sathish Rajamani

Abstract

Pregnancy is a wonderful creation with life’s greatest blessings, dreams and expectation in women’s lives. Pregnancy is a time where a mother is going through a lot of changes both physically and psychologically. Episiotomy is one of the most widely performed surgical procedure at the time of childbirth. As the episiotomy procedure causes perineal pain to mothers, it was considered to be a stressful factor which disrupts the daily activities performed by the mother. Infrared lamp therapy (IFR) is one of the best therapies which enhance episiotomy wound healing and pain reduction. Aim of the study is to evaluate the effectiveness of infrared therapy in healing of episiotomy wound among postnatal mother. Total sample size for the present study was 50 postnatal mothers. Purposive sampling technique was used in this present study. Davidson REEDA Wound Assessment Scale was used to check the wound healing among mothers who underwent episiotomy. Fifty mothers who underwent episiotomy were selected based on the criteria and subjects received infrared ray on the caesarean wound at a distance of 50 cm and 45 degree angle twice daily for 15 minutes from 3rd postoperative day till the day of discharge. The level of wound healing was assessed by the REEDA wound assessment scale from 3rd postoperative day till the day of discharge on alternative days. Descriptive and inferential statistical methods were used for data analysis. The pre-test mean score was 3.84 and the standard deviation score was 0.370. The post-test mean score was 1.64 and the standard deviation value was 0.485. The mean difference value was 2.2. The estimated paired ‘t’ test score was 25.667 for the degree of freedom 59. The obtained ‘t’ value was statistically significant at ‘P’ Value 0.000. This shows infrared lamp was effective in healing the episiotomy wound. It was obvious from the findings that the study hypothesis was accepted and supported, where the postpartum women who applied infrared lamp therapy on episiotomy display faster wound healing so, infrared therapy can be applied as effective way of management by health personnel in their daily caring the postnatal mothers.