Vaginal operative delivery in Germany: a national survey about experience and self-reported competency

Abstract

Background

To determine German obstetricians’ self-perceived experience with vacuum and forceps deliveries.

Patients and methods

Using a web-based survey, German obstetricians were invited to participate in a survey. This survey was approved by the German society of obstetrics and gynecology.

Results

Surveys of 635 obstetricians were received. All obstetricians reported performing significantly less forceps than vacuum deliveries. Almost all obstetricians want to perform more delivery, which indicates the willingness to learn both. More obstetricians felt confident to perform vacuum than forceps. In a similar obstetrical indication, most of the obstetricians would prefer to perform a vacuum assisted delivery. The majority of the obstetricians wished to receive more training in vaginal operative deliveries.

Conclusion

Most of the German obstetricians prefer to use vacuum-assisted vaginal deliveries and feel less confident to perform forceps deliveries. Standardized training to improve the quality of care is recommended.

Keywords:

• Foceps
• ventouse
• vaginal operative delivery
• resident training

Acknowledgements

The authors of this work would like to thank the German Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology and its subdivision, the German Workgroup for Obstetrics and Prenatal Medicine for facilitating the performance of this survey. We would like to thank Prof. Lavin and his institution for offering us his validated survey. We would also like to thank Dr. Gröning and Dr. Ramsauer for supporting our survey throughwww.gyntogo.de

Disclosure statement

A. Hamza is in the advisory board of ‘Clinical Innovation’ and was a sponsored tutor for vaginal operative delivery by Clinical Innovation. The remaining Coauthors declare having no relevant conflict of interest.