Abstract:
Background: - In countries with high maternal mortality, the fear of disrespect and abuse that
women often encounter in facility-based maternity care is a more powerful deterrent in using a skilled
care than commonly recognized barriers. Nevertheless, international efforts to reduce maternal
mortality in low-income contexts have neglected these aspects and focused on increasing births
attended in health institutions by skilled attendants. It could also be one of the reasons for the low
number of delivery by skilled birth attendants in places where there are high health institutions and
birth attendants.
Objective: - To assess respectful maternity care and associated factors among mothers who are in
immediate post-partum period in public health facilities, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Method and material: - A facility based cross sectional study design was conducted at Public
health facilities in Addis Ababa, from March 15 to 22, 2018. The participant facilities for the study
were selected by simple random sampling method. A total of 380 mothers attending post-partum care
were enrolled in the study. A pretested standardized questioner was used for data collection. Data was
entered and checked with Epidata version 4.1 and was exported to SPSS version21. Binary and
multivariate logistic regression was used to identify the association and independent predictors of
respectful maternity care. Finally p-value of less than 0.05 declared the association.
Result: - Three hundred eighty women were interviewed yield a response rate of 99.2%. Among
interviewed women, 82.4% had received respectful care during their stay in maternity ward. Monthly
income 2282.24 ETB and above AOR 1.92[95% C.I 1.048, 3.51], married mothers AOR 3.65 [95% C.I
1.59, 8.36], Mothers, who attended secondary education and higher AOR 3.86 [95% C.I 1.73, 8.62],
Male health providers AOR 2.28 [95% C.I 1.281, 4.08] and giving birth by normal delivery AOR 2.368
[95%C.I 1.12, 4.99] were found to be the predictors of respectful maternity care.
Conclusion and recommendation: More than eighty two percent of the respondents in Addis
Ababa public health facilities in immediate post-partum women have received respectful maternity
care. Socio demographic (educational and marital status) and maternal birth experience (mode of
delivery) were found to influence respectful maternity care. Priority should be given to train female
health providers and process monitoring of the maternal health services were recommended.
