METHODS
Study design:
The present study was conducted as a randomized controlled study. The study was conducted on pregnant women who applied to the pregnancy school of an educational and research hospital on the Anatolian side of Istanbul province between October 2016 and May 2018, and who met the criteria for acceptance of the study.
Setting and samples:
All pregnant women attending the pregnancy school, who agreed to participate in the research, and met the research conditions within the study dates constituted the research population. The sampling of the study was created with the simple random method as the experiment and control group with individuals who met the criteria of the study and who were accepted to participate. In this respect, pregnant women, who were primiparous and between 20-36 gestational weeks, who had single fetuses, expected to give birth normally and spontaneously, with no pregnancy complications and systemic disease, and who could speak Turkish, were included in the study. Power Analysis was made by using the G*Power (v3.1.7) Program to determine the sampling number of the study. According to Cohen's effect size coefficients and other calculations, it was assumed that the evaluations between the two independent groups would have a large impact size (d=0.50). It was also decided that there should be at least 26 people in the groups, and considering that there might be losses in the study process, 30 people were included in the experimental group, and 60 people in the control group, making 90 people in total.
For Randomization, when the experiment and control group were created, support was received from pregnancy school instructors and groups, and pregnant women were determined by using the method of envelope selection. Pregnancy school instructors asked the group volunteering to participate in the study to independently choose one of two blue or red colored envelopes. Those who chose the blue envelope formed the experiment group, and those that chose the red envelope were taken into the control group. The envelope selection process continued until the desired numbers were reached. The researcher was told advised of the groups to which subjects were included by the pregnancy school instructor only after the subjects were chosen.