Provider perspective on use of episiotomy in obstetric practice

A survey of private and public sector maternity care providers was carried out to understand their perspective on use of current guidelines advocating selective use of episiotomy. Nearly 90% of the providers were aware of guidelines on selective episiotomy use but significantly higher proportion (p = 0.03) of private practitioners (56.6%) advocated its use in all nullipara as compared to public sector doctors (23.3%). In actual practice, however, nearly 80% providers reported performing episiotomy in more than 75% nullipara with no difference between private and public sector doctors. Thus, awareness of current evidence was not reflected in clinical practice.