Women's satisfaction with maternity experience at a regional hospital in Swaziland: A cross sectional survey

Clinical care during labor and childbirth is important, however understanding women's preferences and experiences have become more important in assessing quality health care delivery and maternity services utilization. Knowledge on women's satisfaction will be one of the important steps towards solving maternal and child health problems faced in Swaziland. The aim of the study was to determined maternity experiences and women's demographic characteristics that affect perceived satisfaction with maternity care at a regional hospital in Swaziland. A cross sectional survey using structured interview questionnaire was used to obtain data from 198 women who had a normal childbirth during their postnatal hospital stay. One-way ANOVA and t-test were used to examine association between variables and stepwise multiple linear regression analysis was conducted to identify predictors of satisfaction. The final model indicated that respecting women's description of pain/discomfort, staff kindness, gender of birth assistant, never being alone during labor and woman's education level determined satisfaction with maternity experience, explaining 44.6% of the variation in maternity satisfaction (F= 30.932, p <.001). The study findings show the importance of provider related factors (interpersonal aspect of care, gender of provider) and consideration of woman's education on satisfaction with care during intrapartum and postpartum.