This study was to test the effects of a full body massage on labor pain and delivery stress reaction for primipara during labor.

This study employed a quasi-experimental method(nonequivalent control group, pre-post test design). The subjects of this study were 57 primipara hospitalized at the U OB & GYN h ospit al in Inch on fr om November 1. 2001 to July 31, 2002. 28 women were assigned to the experimental group and 29 to the control group. The experimental group was given 20 minutes full body massage for each of three delivery phases. The control group wa s given conventional delivery care . The levels of labor pain were measured by the Visual Analogue Scale and the expression scores of the labor pain and the levels of delivery stress reaction were measured by pulse rate, respiration rate, and blood pressure, and State-Anxiety Scale. Data were analyzed using the repeated measures an alysis of covar iance (ANCOVA), t-test, χ²-test, simple ANCOVA with SPSS program.

There was no interaction effect between time and group (F=.370, p=.693), but significant time effects were found for subjective labor pain (F=3.840, p=.028). Th ere was no interaction effect between time and group (F=.112, p=.894), but significant group effects were found for objective labor pain (F=12.299, p=.001). There was no interaction effect between time and group for PR (F=.172, p=.843), RR (F=.626, p=.539 ), SBP (F=.089, p=.915), DBP (F=.748, p=.479), but significant group effects were found for SBP (F=7.547, p=.008). The level of status anxiety of the experimental group was significantly lower than the control gr oup (F=11.787, p=.001).

This study showed that the full body massage has partially positive effect on labor pain and delivery stress reaction. Th erefore this study suggested that the full body massage might be used clinically to help primipara during labor.