Women report better experiences from maternity care after postnatal consultations: A cross sectional study

Abstract

Objective: To determine if the patient reported experiences (PREMs) of women in maternity care differ by whether or not they had a postnatal consultation before leaving the birth institution.

Methods: Secondary analysis of cross-sectional data to compare PREMs of women who had received an individual consultation (86 %), a group consultation (3 %), and women who had received no consultation (11 %). PREMs were collected using a self-administered questionnaire. Eight summated scales were constructed from 29 single items, pertaining to different parts of the received care. Scores ranged between 0 and 100, with high scores representing positive experiences.

Results: Among the 8156 sampled women, 3387 (42 %) responded. There were statistically significant (p ≤ 0.002) differences (from 3.7 to 16.3 points) on all eight scales. The scores from women who had an individual postnatal consultation were consistently higher than the scores from the other groups. The largest difference was in the scale with the worst score: information about women's health during the postnatal stay.

Conclusion: Women who participated in individual postnatal consultations reported more positive experiences compared to those who did not.

Practice implication: The consistent differences found in this study provide support for administering individual postnatal consultations.

Keywords: Birth; Midwifery; Obstetrics; Patient reported experiences; Post-partum care; Postnatal consultation.