Are women birthing in New South Wales hospitals satisfied with their care?

Jane B Ford, Diane M Hindmarsh, Kim M Browne, Angela L Todd

Surveys of satisfaction with maternity care have been conducted using overnight inpatient surveys and dedicated maternity surveys in a number of Australian settings, however none have been used to report on satisfaction with maternity care among women in New South Wales. The aims of this study were to investigate the association between: 1) parity (first and subsequent births) and patient experience of hospital care at birth, and 2) other patient, birth and hospital characteristics and experience of hospital care at birth. Data were from the New South Wales (NSW) Ministry of Health surveys of overnight hospital inpatients, including maternity patients, between 2007 and 2011. Questionnaires were mailed to a sample of patients three months after receiving inpatient services involving at least 1 night in a public hospital. Experience of care included 12 items grouped into: satisfaction with care, staff and information. Results were weighted to overall hospital facility populations and age-standardised. Frequencies and chi-square tests were used. Analysis of responses from 5,367 obstetric patients revealed three quarters of women were satisfied with care provided in hospital. Compared with women who had previously given birth, first-time mothers were more likely to recommend their birth hospital to friends and family (60.5% versus 56.4%; P < 0.05), less likely to have experienced differing messages from staff (44.8% vs 59.4%; P < 0.001), and less likely to feel they had received sufficient information about feeding (58.8% vs 65.0%; P < 0.001) and caring for their babies (52.4% vs 65.2%; P < 0.001). While metropolitan women were more likely to rate their birth hospital positively (76.0% vs. 71.3%; P < 0.05) than their rural counterparts, rural women tended to rate the care they received (68.1% vs. 63.4%; P < 0.05), and doctors (70.7% vs 61.1%; P < 0.05) and nurses (73.5% vs. 66.9%; P < 0.001) more highly than metropolitan women. The overall picture of maternity care satisfaction in New South Wales is a positive one, with three quarters of women satisfied with care. Further resources could be dedicated to ensuring consistency and amount of information provided, particularly to first-time mothers.