What are the Critical Elements of Satisfaction and Experience in Labor and Childbirth—A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

The labor experience and satisfaction with childbirth are affected by the care provided (external factors) and individual variables (internal factors). In this paper, we present a descriptive analysis that aims to indicate the strongest correlates of birth experience among a wide range of indicators. The study is a prospective, cross-sectional, self-report survey. It includes the experiences of women giving birth in public and private hospitals in Poland. The two main variables were birth experience and satisfaction with care. The analysis consists of three parts: data pre-processing and initial analysis, explorative investigation, and regression analysis. Among the 15 variables with the highest predictive value regarding birth experience were being informed by the medical personnel, communication, and birth environment. The most significant variables among 15 variables, with the highest predictive value regarding care, were those concerning support, information, and respectful care. The strongest predictor for both, birth experience and satisfaction with care, is the sense of information, with logit coefficients of 0.745 and 1.143, respectively, for birth experience and satisfaction (0.367 and 0.346 for standardized OLS coefficient). The findings demonstrate that by using explanatory variables, one can predict a woman’s description of her satisfaction with perinatal care received in the hospital. On the other hand, they do not have such a significant and robust influence on the birth experience examined by the variables. For both the birth experience and satisfaction with care, the sense of being informed is the highest predictor.