Satisfaction of Slovak women with psychosocial aspects of care during childbirth

Abstract

Objective: The objective of the study is to find out and assess satisfaction of Slovak women with psychosocial aspects of perinatal care.

Design and setting: The research was designed as a quantitative cross-sectional study. The research data were collected in five pediatric outpatient clinics in Slovakia.

Participants: The research sample consisted of 360 women within 0-1 year after natural delivery (average time in months from childbirth: 6.22 ± 3.64) who visited the selected pediatric outpatient clinic in the period from October 2016 to January 2018.

Methods: To collect the relevant data, the original Czech questionnaire measuring psychosocial climate in maternity hospitals - KLI-P (Cronbach α = 0.95) was used to investigate the satisfaction of women with care during labor and delivery as well as with psychosocial aspects. The following six factors were assessed: (1) helpfulness and empathy of midwives and (2) of physicians, (3) superiority and lack of interest, (4) physical comfort and services, (5) control of a woman in labor and her participation in decision-making, (6) providing information. The received data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, the Shapiro-Wilk test, robust ANOVA, Post-hoc test, the Wilcoxon two-sample test, a G-test of independence and the Cochran-Armitage test of trend.

Findings: We found that most women (83.1%) were generally satisfied with their care during labor and delivery as well as with psychosocial support. In terms of psychosocial aspects, the highest level of satisfaction was attributed to the approach of the health professionals and the lowest one (61.5%) to the control and participation of delivering woman in decision-making. Both perception of the course of labor and delivery and skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth were shown to be statistically significant predictors of women's satisfaction. The aspect of age was found to be statistically significant in relation to the factor of control of a woman in labor and her participation in decision-making.

Key conclusions and implications for practice: It can be concluded that it is necessary to pay attention to the psychosocial aspects of health care during labor and delivery, with the emphasis on strengthening interventions in the field of participation of women in decision-making. Simultaneously, it is beneficial to emphasize and support the naturalness of childbirth so that women would associate childbirth with a positive experience. Finally, it is important to promote skin-to-skin contact right after birth.

Keywords: Care during labor and birth; Health professionals; Midwives; Psychosocial aspects; Women's satisfaction.