Respectful Maternity Care During Facility-Based Childbirth and Its Predictors in Public Health Facilities in Central Ethiopia: A Multidimensional Communication as a Proximal Predictor: A Cross-Sectional Study

Background: The provision of compassionate, respectful, and caring healthcare is an essential component of health workforces because it builds deep relationships between healthcare practitioners and mothers. However, respectful maternity care has received less attention in practice, and existing research is inconclusive as well. Therefore, this study is aimed to assess respectful maternity care and its predictors during childbirth in Siltie Zone, Ethiopia.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study on 374 mothers from May 1 to 30, 2021. A systematic random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. A structured questionnaire was used to collect the data. The data was entered into Epi Data 3.1, and the analysis was done using SPSS 24.0. Binary logistic regression was employed to identify candidate variables for multivariable logistic regression. In the multivariable analysis, variables having a p-value of less than 0.05 were taken as measures of the degree of association between independent variables and the outcome variable.

Results: The result of the study revealed that the overall prevalence of respectful maternal care is 41.0%. Rapport built through communication during antenatal care (AOR = 6.32, 95% CI: 2.81, 16.67), pre-communication of husband and wife (AOR = 2.45, 95% CI: 2.01, 13.69), clearly known communication of family with mother (AOR = 0.35, 95% CI: 0.11, 0.69), caring culturally and appropriately (AOR = 7.45, 95% CI: 2.88, 19.28), perceived length of the stay during labor (AOR = 1.36, 95% CI: 0.230, 0.551), number of ANC received (AOR = 1.98, 95% CI: 0.037, 0.260), and number of deliveries (AOR = 1.36, 95% CI: 0.230, 0.551) were independent predictors of the outcome variable.

Conclusion: The study revealed that respectful maternity care was provided very low. Multidimensional communication with the mother was identified as a significant proximal predictor of respectful maternity care. The study suggests that stakeholders should improve respectful maternity care through the provision of professional health training and create guidelines to identify and address challenges to its practice.