Understanding mistreatment during institutional delivery in Northeast Nigeria: a mixed-method study

Understanding rural women's preferences for telephone call engagement with primary health care providers in Nigeria: a discrete choice experiment

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the use of mobile phones to provide primary health care services and maintain continuity of care. This study aims to understand rural women's preferences for telephone call engagement with primary health care providers in Nigeria.

METHODS

A discrete choice experiment was conducted alongside an action research project that empowered primary health care workers to develop and implement a telephone call intervention to assess and enhance experiences with facility childbirth care. Between January and March 2022, 30 providers from 10 primary health care facilities implemented the choice experiment among rural women who had institutional childbirth to elicit service user preferences for telephone call engagement. The women were asked to express their preferred scenario for telephone call engagement with their primary health care providers. Generalised linear mixed models were used to estimate women's preferences.

RESULTS

Data for 460 women were available for the discrete choice experiment. The study showed that rural women have preferences for telephone call engagement with primary health care providers. Specifically, women preferred engaging with female to male callers (β=1.665 (95% CI 1.41, 1.93), SE=0.13, p<0.001), preferred call duration under 15 min (β=1.287 (95% CI 0.61, 1.96), SE=0.34, p<0.001) and preferred being notified before the telephone engagement (warm calling) (β=1.828 (95% CI 1.10, 2.56), SE=0.37, p<0.001). Phone credit incentive was also a statistically significant predictor of women's preferences for engagement. However, neither the availability of scheduling options, the period of the day or the day of the week predicts women's preferences.

CONCLUSIONS

The study highlights the importance of understanding rural women's preferences for telephone call engagement with healthcare providers in low-income and middle-income countries. These findings can inform the development of mobile phone-based interventions and improve acceptability and broader adoption.

Women's perceptions of telephone interviews about their experiences with childbirth care in Nigeria: A qualitative study

Our objective is to investigate women's perceptions of phone interviews about their experiences with facility childbirth care. The study was conducted between October 2020 and January 2021, in Gombe State, Nigeria. Participants were women aged 15-49 years, who delivered in ten study Primary Health Care centres, provided phone numbers, and consented to a follow-up telephone interview about their childbirth experience. The phone interviews took place 14 months after the delivery and consisted of a quantitative survey about women's experiences of facility childbirth followed by a set of structured qualitative questions about their experiences with the phone survey. Three months later 20 women were selected, based on their demographic characteristics, for a further in-depth qualitative phone interview to explore the answers to the structured qualitative questions in more depth. The qualitative interviews were analysed using a thematic approach. We found that most of the women appreciated being called to discuss their childbirth experiences as it made them feel privileged and valued, they were motivated to participate as they viewed the topic as relevant and thought that their interview could lead to improvements in care. They found the interview procedures easy and perceived that the call offered privacy. Poor network connectivity and not owning the phone they were using presented challenges to some women. Women felt more able to re-arrange interview times on the phone compared to a face-to-face interview, they valued the increased autonomy as they were often busy with household chores and could rearrange to a more convenient time. Views about interviewer gender diverged, but most participants preferred a female interviewer. The preferred interview length was a maximum of 30 minutes, though some women said duration was irrelevant if the subject of discussion was important. In conclusion, women had positive views about phone interviews on experiences with facility childbirth care.

Measurement of respectful maternity care in exit interviews following facility childbirth: a criterion validity assessment in Nigeria

Background

Valid methods for assessing women’s experiences of maternity care are essential to the global efforts toward providing positive childbirth environments for all women in all health facilities.

Methods

This criterion validity study used observation of childbirth as the reference standard compared to exit interviews with women upon discharge with a live baby, usually within 24 hours of childbirth. We investigated eight positive and sixteen negative maternity care experience indicators. Data were collected from ten primary healthcare facilities in Gombe State, northeast Nigeria, in August 2018 and August 2019. Data analysis involved tabulation of demographic characteristics of women and childbirth context, computation of individual level validity metrics including the area under the receiver operating curve (AUC) and estimating population level validity using the inflation factor (IF).

Results

A total of 724 women were observed and interviewed at the time of discharge (exit) following facility childbirth, 15% of whom were adolescents, 99% were married, 43% had no formal education, and a skilled birth attendant had attended only 12%. The prevalence of positive maternity care experience indicators ranged between 25% and 96% in childbirth observations. For these positive indicators, the agreement between childbirth observations and exit interviews ranged from 55% to 97%. Six of the eight positive maternity care experience indicators had high overall validity, meaning AUC≥0.70 and 0.75<IF<1.25, with high sensitivity (89% to 99%) and moderate to high specificity (44% to 84%). The prevalence of the 16 negative maternity care experience indicators ranged between 0.1% and 18% in childbirth observations. For these negative indicators, agreement ranged from 87% to 99%. Just six of the 16 negative maternity care experience indicators met the criteria for validation analysis; and these showed low to moderate sensitivity (32% to 74%), high specificity (97% to 100%) and moderate (0.60<AUC<0.70) to high (AUC≥0.70) individual-level validity.

Conclusions

In this high mortality setting with relatively low coverage of skilled attendance at birth, exit interviews with women following facility-based childbirth care provided responses consistent with the observation of childbirth for eight positive and six negative maternity care experience indicators.

Disrespectful Maternity Care and Abuse During Childbirth: Exploring Perceptions and Experiences of Women Delivered at a Tertiary Hospital in Abakaliki, Nigeria

Background

An important but little understood component of poor care that women receive during antenatal care and childbirth is disrespect and abuse perpetuated by health workers. Fear of experiencing disrespect and abuse has a negative influence on women's decision to seek care at health facility during pregnancy, labour and delivery. The objective of this study is to determine the prevalence, pattern and predictors of disrespect and abuse during labour and delivery.

Methodology

This is a questionnaire-based cross-sectional study conducted from February 1, 2019, to July 31, 2019 among postnatal women delivered at Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 22.

Results

The prevalence of disrespectful maternity care and abuse was 47.6%. The forms of disrespect and abuse experienced by the participants were detention in the health facility (40.2%), physical abuse (34.1%), non-dignified care (37.2%), non-consented care (20.1%), abandonment of care (18.9%), non-confidential care (25%) and discriminatory care (15.2%). Lack of companionship during delivery (AOR: 7.01, 95%CI: 1.27-4.49; p = 0.007), unbooked status (AOR: 2.37, 95%Cl: 0.31 - 0.92; p = 0.01) and rural residence (AOR = 4.52 95% CI: 2.33-8.75, P<0.0001) were factors associated with disrespect and abuse during childbirth.

Conclusion

Disrespectful maternity care and abuse during childbirth among women seeking maternity care is still prevalent (47.6%) in our hospital. Educating health workers on the importance of respectful maternity care would ensure acceptable, quality and dignified care for all women seeking maternity care in our facility.

To call or not to call: exploring the validity of telephone interviews to derive maternal self-reports of experiences with facility childbirth care in northern Nigeria

Background

To institutionalise respectful maternity care, frequent data on the experience of childbirth care is needed by health facility staff and managers. Telephone interviews have been proposed as a low-cost alternative to derive timely and actionable maternal self-reports of experience of care. However, evidence on the validity of telephone interviews for this purpose is limited.

Methods

Eight indicators of positive maternity care experience and 18 indicators of negative maternity care experience were investigated. We compared the responses from exit interviews with women about their childbirth care experience (reference standard) to follow-up telephone interviews with the same women 14 months after childbirth. We calculated individual-level validity metrics including, agreement, sensitivity, specificity, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC). We compared the characteristics of women included in the telephone follow-up interviews to those from the exit interviews.

Results

Demographic characteristics were similar between the original exit interview group (n=388) and those subsequently reached for telephone interview (n=294). Seven of the eight positive maternity care experience indicators had reported prevalence higher than 50% at both exit and telephone interviews. For these indicators, agreement between the exit and the telephone interviews ranged between 50% and 92%; seven positive indicators met the criteria for validation analysis, but all had an AUC below 0.6. Reported prevalence for 15 of the 18 negative maternity care experience indicators was lower than 5% at exit and telephone interviews. For these 15 indicators, agreement between exit and telephone interview was high at over 80%. Just three negative indicators met the criteria for validation analysis, and all had an AUC below 0.6.

Conclusions

The telephone interviews conducted 14 months after childbirth did not yield results that were consistent with exit interviews conducted at the time of facility discharge. Women’s reports of experience of childbirth care may be influenced by the location of reporting or changes in the recall of experiences of care over time.

Reducing Disrespect and Abuse of Women During Antenatal Care and Delivery Services at Injibara General Hospital, Northwest Ethiopia: A Pre-Post Interventional Study

Introduction

Disrespect and abuse during pregnancy and childbirth continue to be a barrier for the utilization and quality of care in maternal health services. This study was therefore aimed at reducing the disrespect and abuse of mothers during antenatal care and delivery services at Injibara general hospital, northwest Ethiopia.

Materials and Methods

A pre–post interventional mixed method design was conducted among a total of 738 randomly selected mothers who attended antenatal care and delivery services from November 1, 2018 to May 20, 2019. To collect the data, exit interview using an interviewer-administered structured questionnaire was used. Provision of training, preparation of standard written guidelines and protocols, waiting room construction, availing screening or curtain, equipment, essential drugs and supplies, supportive supervision and mentoring, and staff motivation were the lists of interventions applied to decrease disrespect and abuse. Descriptive statistics and independent t-test were computed. The independanet t-test is used because the study populations at the baseline and endline were different. A p-value of <0.05 and a mean difference with 95% CI was used to test the significance of the interventions.

Results

The study revealed that disrespect and abuse during pregnancy and childbirth decreased from 71.8% at baseline to 15.9% at the end-line with a 55.9% change (mean difference: 0.56, 95% CI: 0.55–0.57). Alongside, the magnitude on the subscales of disrespect and abuse (physical abuse, non-consented care, non-confidential care, non-dignified care, discrimination and neglected care) was decreased at post-intervention, compared with the baseline.

Conclusion

Respectful maternal healthcare after the intervention was significantly improved. The finding suggests that provision of training to healthcare providers, written policies and procedures that describe the responsibilities of healthcare providers in the respectful maternal care process, improving facility infrastructure, availing supplies, regular supportive supervision and mentoring and motivation of high-performance employees have the potential to enhance respectful maternal care. Therefore, incorporating such training into pre-service curricula and in‐service training of healthcare workers may indorse the practice of respectful maternal care.

Toward improving respectful maternity care: a discrete choice experiment with rural women in northeast Nigeria

Introduction

There is a limited understanding of the importance of respectful maternity care on utilisation of maternal and newborn health services. This study aimed to determine how specific hypothetical facility birth experience of care attributes influenced rural Nigerian women’s stated preferences for hypothetical place of delivery.

Methods

Attributes were identified through a comprehensive review of the literature. These attributes and their respective levels were further investigated in a qualitative study. We then developed and implemented a cross-sectional discrete choice experiment with a random sample of 426 women who had facility-based childbirth to elicit their stated preferences for facility birth experience of care attributes. Women were asked to choose between two hypothetical health facilities or home birth for future delivery. Choice data were analysed using multinomial logit and mixed multinomial logit models.

Results

Complete data for the discrete choice experiment were available for 425 of 426 women. The majority belonged to Fulani ethnic group (60%) and were married (95%). Almost half (45%) had no formal education. Parameter estimates were all of expected signs suggesting internal validity. The most important influence on choice of place of delivery was good health system condition, followed by absence of sexual abuse, then absence of physical and verbal abuse. Poor facility culture, including an unclean birth environment with no privacy and unclear user fee, was associated with the most disutility and had the most negative impact on preferences for facility-based childbirth.

Conclusion

The likelihood of poor facility birth experiences had a significant impact on stated preferences for place of delivery among rural women in northeast Nigeria. The study findings further underline the important relationship between facility birth experience and utilisation. Achieving universal health coverage would require efforts toward addressing poor facility birth experiences and promoting respectful maternity care, to ensure women want to access the services available.