Social predictors of caesarean section births in Italy

Abstract

Background: Caesarean section birth is a frequent mode of delivery worldwide. Several social factors have been demonstrated to be strong predictors of caesarean births.

Objectives: To identify possible social predictors of caesarean section births in Italy.

Methods: Data for this study were drawn from the Italian Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) survey conducted during year 2005 which comprised a nationally representative sample of 50,474 households (128,040 subjects). This 2005 ISTAT survey asked several questions to women who delivered (n=5,812) in the past five years prior to the survey about their delivery mode. The main dependent variables were caesarean delivery rates while independent variables included sociodemographics, health and health-related factors. Descriptive statistics, bivariate and multivariate analyses were performed.

Results: Our sample comprised 5,812 women. Rate of caesarean deliveries was 36.2 percent. Age (adjOR: 0.961; p=0.000) and residence (Reference: North-West; Centre: adjOR: 0.753, p=0.001; South: adjOR: 0.484, p=0.000; Islands: adjOR: 0.629, p=0.000) were the sole social factors which were significant in predicting caesarean delivery (adjusted model).

Conclusions: Rate of caesarean delivery in Italy is rather high. Age and residence are the sole social predictors evidenced from the ISTAT 2005 survey data.

Keywords: Italy; caesarean births; social predictors.