Abstract

Background and purpose: Labor pain and anxiety have negative effects on mother, fetus, and consequently the labor process. Qur'an is treated with great respect by Muslims and there are interests toward non-medical interventions based on religious beliefs during labor. This review article examined the effect of listening to Qur'an recitation on severity of pain and anxiety during labor. Materials and methods: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Google scholar, and Persian databases until March 2020 using the following keywords: labor pain, anxiety, Qur'an, Holy book, and clinical trial. Jadad scale was used to evaluate the quality of the articles. Results: There were four studies on the effect of listening to Qur'an recitation on intensity of pain during labor and two studies on its effect on anxiety during labor. There were significant differences in standardized mean difference of labor pain intensity between the intervention and control groups (-0.616, 95 CI:-387--0.845, P< 0.001) indicating that listening to a recitation of Qur'an can significantly reduce the severity of labor pain. Two other studies showed that listening to Qur'an recitation reduces anxiety level in first stage of labor (P<0.001). Conclusion: The present study showed that listening to Qur'an recitation could decrease the intensity of pain and anxiety during labor. Therefore, health care providers should consider the beliefs of expectant mothers and use spiritual examples such as listening to Qur'an recitation to achieve successful childbirth. © 2020, Mazandaran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved.