Abstract
Background Respectful care during childbirth has been described as “a universal human right that encompasses the principles of ethics and respect for women's feelings, dignity, choices, and preferences.” Many women experience a lack of respectful and abusive care during childbirth across the globe. Objective This study aimed to determine women's perception of respectful maternity care (RMC) during facility-based childbirth. Method A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 150 mothers admitted to the maternity ward of Nepal Medical College and Teaching Hospital using a purposive sampling technique. Data were collected through an interview technique by using a validated tool containing 15 items each measured on a scale of 5. Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 16 was used for data analysis. Frequency, percentage, mean score, standard deviation, chi-square test, and binary logistic regression were used to analyze descriptive and inferential statistics. Results In total, 84.7% of the women reported that they have experienced overall RMC services with a mean score ± SD (61.70 ± 12.12). Though the majority of the women reported that they have experienced RMC services, they also revealed that they have experienced disrespectful care in various forms such as being shouted upon (30.0%), being slapped (18.7%), delayed service provision (22.7%), and not talking positively about pain and relief during childbirth (28.0%). Likewise, length of stay, parity, and time of delivery were found as factors that influenced friendly care (COR = 0.383, 95% CI: 0.157–0.934), abuse-free care (COR = 3.663, 95% CI: 1.607–8.349), and timely care (COR = 2.050, 95% CI: 1.031–4.076) dimensions of RMC, respectively. Conclusion Even though RMC emphasizes eliminating disrespectful and abusive environment from health facilities, 15.0% of participants perceived that they have not experienced overall RMC services. So, the health facility should focus on the interventions which ensure that every woman receives this basic human dignity during one of the most vulnerable times in their lives.
Highlights
About 830 deaths of women are recorded around the globe every day, which is resulted by hurdles associated with pregnancy and childbirth
The countries have been successful in decreasing the maternal mortality by less than 44.0% over for 25 years (1990–2015), they have integrated to drop down the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100,000 live births in the year from 2016 to 2030 as a part of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) [2]
In 2016, the maternity mortality ratio (MMR) in Nepal was 239 per 100,000 live births [3]. ough the percentage of deliveries conducted in health institutions was increased from 35 in 2011 [4] to 55 in 2016 [3], Nepal is focused on attaining 70 percent of all deliveries by SBAs and at organizations by 2020 to accomplish the SDG target [3]
Summary
About 830 deaths of women are recorded around the globe every day, which is resulted by hurdles associated with pregnancy and childbirth. Pretesting was conducted in 10% of the total sample size, i.e., among 15 mothers in the maternity ward of NMCTH, immediately prior to discharge from the health facilities after childbirth, and those respondents who took part in pretest were excluded from the real study.
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