Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jul 2;25(1):693.
doi: 10.1186/s12884-025-07804-9.

Disrespectful care towards mothers giving birth at selected hospital in Kigali/Rwanda

Alice Muhayimana  1   2 , Irene Josephine Kearns, Aimable Nkurunziza  3 , Olive Tengera  4 , Claudine Muteteli  4 , Vedaste Bagweneza  4 , Pacifique Umubyeyi  4 , Aline Uwase  5   4
Affiliations

Disrespectful care towards mothers giving birth at selected hospital in Kigali/Rwanda

Alice Muhayimana et al. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. .

Abstract

Background: Over the past decade, global public health has increasingly focused on studying the mistreatment towards women during facility-based childbirth. However, in Rwanda, research on disrespectful and abusive care experienced by mothers during childbirth remains limited. This study aimed to assess disrespect and abuse experienced by women during their recent childbirth at a selected district hospital in Kigali, Rwanda.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study in a selected urban district hospital in Kigali, Rwanda. We employed systematic random sampling to select 246 mothers who recently delivered at the study site and had been discharged from the hospital but were still on the premises. We utilised descriptive statistics and calculated a summation score of nine items of disrespect and abuse to determine our outcome of interest. Subsequently, we dichotomised the outcome. Additionally, we employed chi-square analysis and logistic regression to identify predictors of disrespect and abuse.

Results: The prevalence of disrespect and abuse was 67.48%. During the follow-up questions, 28.86% of participants reporting experiencing disrespect and abuse once and 32.52% reporting experiencing it two to eight times. Participants experienced disrespect and abuse between one and eight times. The most prevalent forms of disrespect and abuse experienced were; abandonment (n = 77), undignified care (n = 76), and lack of information on received care (n = 65). The unadjusted logistic analysis indicated that gravida 3 was significantly associated with disrespect and abuse, with a P-value of 0.022 and a crude odds ratio of 3.2 (95% CI: 1.18-9.08). However, after adjusting for other variables, this association was no longer statistically significant, as reflected by an adjusted odds ratio with P-value of 0.061.

Conclusion: Our study revealed the high rate of disrespect and abuse towards women during labour and childbirth. Disrespect and abuse remains a significant issue in our study setting, emphasising the need for interventions to mitigate this problem by enhancing accountability mechanisms among healthcare providers working in maternity services.

Keywords: Childbirth; Intrapartum; Maternity; Mistreatment; Undignified care.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: We conducted this study in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Ethical clearance was received from the Institutional Review Board of the College of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Rwanda with a reference 385/CMHS-IRB/2021.Permission was obtained from the hospital. Informed consent was obtained from all participants involved in the study. None of the participants were minors. Consent for publication: Not applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Frequency of D&A experienced by the participants
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Types of disrespect and Abuse reported by the participants
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Abuya T, Sripad P, Ritter J, Ndwiga C, Warren CE. Measuring mistreatment of women throughout the birthing process: implications for quality of care assessments. Reprod Health Matters. 2018;26(53):48–61. - PubMed
    1. Balde MD, Bangoura A, Sall O, Soumah AM, Vogel JP, Bohren MA. Perceptions and experiences of the mistreatment of women during childbirth in health facilities in Guinea: a qualitative study with women and service providers. Reprod Health. 2017;14(1):3. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bante A, Teji K, Seyoum B, Mersha A. Respectful maternity care and associated factors among women who delivered at Harar hospitals, eastern Ethiopia: a cross-sectional study. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2020;20(1–9):86. 10.1186/s12884-020-2757-x. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Baranowska B, Doroszewska A, Kubicka-Kraszyńska U, Pietrusiewicz J, Adamska-Sala I, Kajdy A, Sys D, Tataj-Puzyna U, Bączek G, Crowther S. Is there respectful maternity care in Poland? Women’s views about care during labour and birth. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth. 2019;19(1):1–9. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Betron ML, McClair TL, Currie S, Banerjee J. Expanding the agenda for addressing mistreatment in maternity care: a mapping review and gender analysis. Reprod Health. 2018;15(1):1–3. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources