Assessment of Maternal Satisfaction with the Quality of Obstetric Care Provided in the Maternity Unit of Mobini Hospital, Sabzevar, Iran

Background: Mothers and infants are considered as two vulnerable groups. Most problems occur during and immediately after delivery, which, if not addressed promptly, lead to death of mother, baby, or both. Maternal emotional support and midwifery care is one of non-pharmacologic methods of pain management during labor and delivery. Since the quality of midwifery care has an effective role in mothers' satisfaction with midwife's performance, this study was conducted to assess the quality of mothers' satisfaction with midwifery care. Materials and Methods In this cross-sectional study, 400 mothers admitted to the postpartum ward of Shahid Mobini Brothers Hospital of Sabzevar, Iran, were evaluated by simple convenience sampling. The research instrument was a questionnaire entitled "Satisfaction with quality of midwifery care in labor and delivery room", and was confirmed by content validity method and reliability was calculated by Cronbach's alpha coefficient (alpha = 0.92). Data were analyzed using SPSS software version 16.0. Results: The average age of mothers was 25.88 +/- 5.70 years old. The mean maternal satisfaction was 104.72 +/- 0.76. In satisfaction category, 1% were dissatisfied, 17.3% had moderate satisfaction, and 81.7% had high level of satisfaction. There was a significant relationship between the variables affecting the level of satisfaction including education, age, and number of maternal deliveries with satisfaction (P<0.05). Conclusion The results of this study indicate that mothers have high satisfaction with the quality of midwifery care in the maternity ward. This care is mainly performed by midwives, and midwifery tutors and students. Therefore, it is recommended to apply midwives in other areas requiring specialized midwifery performance.