RESEARCH ARTICLE
Gap Analysis: Quality and Women's Satisfaction Regarding Postnatal Care
Rehab Hussain Al-Hussainy1, 2, Howieda Fouly1, 3, *, Ebtsam Aly Abou Hashish1, 4
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2022Volume: 16
E-location ID: e187443462204280
Publisher ID: e187443462204280
DOI: 10.2174/18744346-v16-e2204280
Article History:
Received Date: 29/5/2021Revision Received Date: 23/11/2021
Acceptance Date: 23/12/2021
Electronic publication date: 19/07/2022
Collection year: 2022

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Background:
Improving the quality of maternal health is one of the eight major developmental goals of the World Health Organization. Women's satisfaction with maternity healthcare services is a crucial indicator of quality health care.
Objective:
This study aimed to evaluate the gap between the quality of maternity care and women's satisfaction with postnatal care.
Methods:
This study used a descriptive cross-sectional study design. The sample size was 300 postpartum Saudi women. The data were collected from the postnatal care unit at the King Khalid Hospital, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, The study used the SERVQUAL and Postnatal Satisfaction with Nursing Care Questionnaires to measure the studied variables.
Results:
The mean ± SD (3.73 ± 0.466) of women perceived that the provided care was of high quality and the mean ±SD (3.20±0.511) of women's satisfaction with postnatal care was moderate. The gap between expected and perceived quality of maternity care was reported to be -1.27. There is a significant positive relationship between the quality of maternity care and women's satisfaction.
Conclusion:
The study concluded that the participants were generally satisfied with the postnatal care and overall maternity care provided in the King Khalid Hospital. However, they showed the desire to get more empathetic care. Patients' satisfaction should be evaluated periodically to establish baseline data and provide postnatal care interventions tailored to women's expectations. There is a need to increase training for enhancing healthcare providers' empathetic and communication skills to improve the relationship between the staff and women.