Quality of care for pregnant and postpartum women in randomly selected hospitals in Poland

Abstrakt

Aim. The purpose of the study was to determine the degree of satisfaction of women giving birth in hospitals in Poland with the quality of perinatal care. Factors such as choice of hospital, possibility of obtaining an epidural, participation of people accompanying women during labor and others were taken into account. The study examined how complications and procedures (such as perineal incision) affected women’s satisfaction with perinatal care.

Material and methods. The survey was conducted online among patients giving birth in facilities across Poland, both public and private. Participation in the survey was offered to a random sample of 309 women who gave birth between 2014 and 2024. A self-administered questionnaire, consisting of closed and open-ended questions, was used for evaluation.

Results. The perinatal care was rated positively by 70.8% of the women surveyed. Among the Polish women surveyed, only 8.3% rated the level of care as bad and 2.1% as very poor . Most respondents gave birth in public hospitals, and only a small percentage in private hospitals (3.2%), so the conclusions drawn in this study apply mainly to public facilities.

Conclusions. The most significant factors in assessing the satisfaction of mothers with the standard of care were the attitude of medical personnel toward patients and the lack of availability of epidural anaesthesia for labor. The quality of perinatal care in Polish hospitals seems satisfactory for most patients, but some issues still need improvement. Care of the pregnant woman should be multilevel and include both physical and psychological aspects, for the overall well-being of mother and child.