Abstract

Introduction: Episiotomy is the most common surgery in gynecology which can cause infection or delay in wound healing like as any other wound. Scrophularia striata extract has been traditionally used for wound healing. Therefore, this study was performed with aim to investigate the effect of Scrophularia striata plant on episiotomy wound healing in primiparous women. Methods: This three-blind randomized clinical trial was conducted on 80 primiparous women referred to Ganjavian hospital of Dezful in 2014-2015. The subjects were divided to two groups of case and placebo (40 subjects in each two groups). After delivery and episiotomy, the mothers used a knuckle of prescribed cream in their sutures area once a night for 10 nights. Tools consisted of demographic and midwifery information questionnaire, REEDA scale form. Assessment of wound healing was performed using REEDA scale at 5th, 10th and 21th day days after delivery. Data was analyzed with SPSS software (version 21) and descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and analytical (Mann-Whitney and t-test). P<0.05 was considered significant Results: On days 5, 10 and 21 postpartum, a significant difference was found between the mean score of erythema, edema and total scores in the two groups. Also, in case group, the mean of REEDA scores were 4.43±1.7 at 5th day, 2.28±1.9 at 10th day and 0.66±1.5 at 21th day of postpartum, but in placebo group, it was 5.51±2.3 at 5th day, 3.05±1.9 at 10th day and 1.35±1.6 at 21th day of postpartum that two groups had significant difference in terms of wound healing (P<0.05). Conclusion: Scrophularia striata plant is effective on better and faster healing of episiotomy wound, so it can be used to accelerate episiotomy wound healing. © 2017, Mashhad University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.