Promoting respectful maternity care: challenges and prospects from the perspectives of midwives at a tertiary health facility in Ghana
Dzomeku, Veronica Millicent, Boamah Mensah, Adwoa Bemah, Nakua, Emmanuel Kweku, Agbadi, Pascal, Okyere, Joshua, Donkor, Peter, and Lori, Jody R. (2022) Promoting respectful maternity care: challenges and prospects from the perspectives of midwives at a tertiary health facility in Ghana. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 22 (1). 451.
|
PDF (Published Version)
- Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Background: Evidence shows that women in Ghana experience disrespectful care (slapping, pinching, being shouted at, etc.) from midwives during childbirth. Hence, evidence-based research is needed to advance the adoption of respectful maternity care (RMC) by midwives. We therefore sought to explore and document midwives’ perspectives concerning challenges faced and prospects available for promoting RMC in a tertiary health facility.
Methods: We employed an exploratory descriptive qualitative study design. In total, we conducted 12 interviews with midwives educated on RMC. All audio data were transcribed verbatim and exported to NVivo-12 for data management and analyses. We relied on the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research guideline in reporting this study.
Results: The findings were broadly categorised into three themes: emotional support, dignified care and respectful communication which is consistent with the WHO’s quality of care framework. For each theme, the current actions that were undertaken to promote RMC, the challenges and recommendations to improve RMC promotion were captured. Overall, the current actions that promoted RMC included provision of sacral massages and reassurance, ensuring confidentiality and consented care, and referring clients who cannot pay to the social welfare unit. The challenges to providing RMC were logistical constraints for ensuring privacy, free movement of clients, and alternative birthing positions. Poor attitudes from some midwives, workload and language barrier were other challenges that emerged. The midwives recommended the appointment of more midwives, as well as the provision of logistics to support alternative birthing positions and privacy. Also, they recommended the implementation of continuous training and capacity building.
Conclusion: We conclude that in order for midwives to deliver RMC services that include emotional support, dignified care, and respectful communication, the government and hospital administration must make the required adjustments to resolve existing challenges while improving the current supporting activities.
| Item ID: | 88940 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1471-2393 |
| Keywords: | Dignified care, Ghana, Midwives, Respectful communication, Respectful maternity care |
| Copyright Information: | © The Author(s) 2022. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data |
| Date Deposited: | 23 Oct 2025 03:58 |
| More Statistics |
Actions (Repository Staff Only)
 |
Item Control Page |