Safety before comfort: a focused enquiry of Nepal skilled birth attendants’ concepts of respectful maternity care
2014 (English)In: Evidence Based Midwifery., ISSN 1479-4489, Vol. 12, no 2, p. 59-64Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Background. Respectful maternity care is the universal right of childbearing women, but in Nepal there are no midwives to deliver this care and it is provided by skilled birth attendants (SBAs), who may be physicians, certified nurses, auxiliary nurse-midwives or degree-trained nurses.
Aim. To explore how this concept of respectful maternity care was perceived by SBAs in practice.
Design. Focus group discussions were used and the setting was two tertiary level maternity hospitals in Nepal. Ethical approval for the study was obtained from the Nepal Health Research Council. A total of 24 SBAs were recruited voluntarily from the maternity units. Data were analysed using a phenomenographic approach and interpretation was verified by the focus group facilitator and note-taker.
Findings. Five categories, divided into16 sub-categories, present the SBAs’ collective description of respectful care.
Conclusions. SBAs understood that respectful care at birth was important, but argued that ‘safety comes before comfort’. To achieve safe maternity care, the contribution of relatives is essential, in addition to the provision of medical care.
Implications. Family members need to accompany the woman and her newborn from admission to discharge to provide basic care and this needs to be reviewed. Professional midwives need to be trained, recruited, and deployed in areas where they are most needed and the government needs to regulate the profession and make it legal.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2014. Vol. 12, no 2, p. 59-64
Keywords [en]
Maternity care, midwifery, phenomenographic analysis, focus group discussions, evidence-based midwifery
National Category
Health Sciences
Research subject
Research Profiles 2009-2020, Health and Welfare
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-14243OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-14243DiVA, id: diva2:724448
2014-06-122014-06-122021-11-12Bibliographically approved