Perineal Assessment and Repair Longitudinal Study (PEARLS): a matched-pair cluster randomized trial

Table 4 Mean differences in cluster-level summary statistics of women’s reported outcomes in phase 2

	Post-natal outcomes	Mean difference^a(95% CI)	P-value^b
10-12 days	Pain walking or sitting in previous 24 hours, %	0.7% (−10.1% to 11.4%)	0.89
	Total walking and sitting pain scores over the previous 24 hours	0.10 (−0.27 to 0.46)	0.56
	Required suture removal, %^c	2.2% (0% to 10.0%)	0.03
	Took pain relief in previous 24 hours, %	7.6% (−4.3% to 19.5%)	0.19
	Still breastfeeding, %	3.1% (−10.4% to 16.6%)	0.62
	Perineal wound infection since birth, %	4.2% (0.4% to 8.0%)	0.03
3 months	Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Score 13+, %	−1.1% (−8.1% to 6.0%)	0.75
	Resumed intercourse after 9 weeks or more, %	−3.1% (−15.9% to 9.7%)	0.60
	Poor or moderately poor perineal healing, %	0.1% (−4.9% to 5.2%)	0.95

^aMean difference = mean of B clusters – mean of A clusters. Positive mean differences indicate that values were on average higher in the group B (late intervention) clusters.
^bPaired t-test.
^cHighly skewed distribution, so median (95% CI) and P-value from Wilcoxon test are presented.

ISSN: 1741-7015