| The Wittmann-Price Theory of Emancipated Decision-making (EDM) was derived from the philosophical underpinnings of Critical Social, Freire's Emancipatory Education and Feminist Theory. The theory describes a process of reaching a more positive state of being, a state of freedom in choice, by first acknowledging the affective experience of oppression in women's healthcare. This oppression produces a dilemma in decision-making by socially sanctioning one alternative as superior over all other alternatives. The theory proposed that five subconcepts must be present when using the decision-making process. These are empowerment, a flexible environment, personal knowledge, reflection, and social norms. This study used three instruments, Subject Demographic Questionnaire (SDQ), the Wittmann-Price Emancipated Decision-making Scale (EDMS), and the Satisfaction with Decision scale (SWD) by Holmes-Rovner (1996) to collect data from 97 women who delivered uncompromised term infants in one Pennsylvania hospital. Pearson correlations showed all EDMS subscale intercorrelations were significant except for the relationship between reflection and personal knowledge and between reflection and social norms. The hypothesis that emancipated decision-making leads to satisfaction with the decision was supported. Correlation of EDMS and SWD scores yielded a r = .74 (p < .001). The linear combination of the EDMS subscales of emancipated decision-making predicted satisfaction with decision-making better than any one element alone. The combination of personal knowledge and flexible environment was the best predictor of satisfaction and explained 62.2% of the variance. Additional analyses of data revealed positive correlations between employment and empowerment and negative correlations between age, parity and empowerment as well as a negative correlation between parity and reflection. This study was done as the first part of the ongoing theoretical development of the Wittmann-Price Theory of EDM. |
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