Building confidence and trust in Ireland's National Maternity Services Workforce –What matters most and how?

Adegboyega Ojo, Nina Rizun, Grace S. Walsh, Wojciech Przychodzen, Mona Isazad Mashinchi, Conor Foley and Daniela Rohde

Health Policy, 2023, vol. 138, issue C

Abstract: National surveys on care experiences are increasingly adopted as regulatory mechanisms for improving care quality and increasing public trust in healthcare services. Based on data collected as part of Ireland's 2020 National Maternity Experience Survey, this study investigates care-related factors that contribute most to confidence and trust in the professional workforce (or carers) within Irish maternity services. The survey covered the full spectrum of maternity care and received 3,206 responses which were analysed using structural equation modelling. Results show that trust in carers may be enhanced through greater attention to the quality of interpersonal aspects of maternity care in a few core areas. We found that factors related to dignity and respect (β=0.270), involvement in decision-making (β=0.186), pain management (β=0.172), and communication (β=0.151) are core determinants of confidence and trust in the professional workforce of maternity services. Perceived quality of care in these four aspects increased on average, with the women's age. Women under 29 rated their experiences in these areas as significantly lower than the average. Women with a disability also rated their experiences significantly lower than average in three core areas. Our results suggest that trustworthy, equitable, and high-quality maternity care requires ongoing development of interpersonal skills within the maternity services professional workforce particularly in caring for younger women (under 29 years) and those with a disability.

Keywords: Maternity services, Trust in maternity services, Women-centred care; Equitable healthcare, Trust in the maternity care professionals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851023002324
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:hepoli:v:138:y:2023:i:c:s0168851023002324

DOI: 10.1016/j.healthpol.2023.104947

Access Statistics for this article

Health Policy is currently edited by Katrien Kesteloot, Mia Defever and Irina Cleemput

More articles in Health Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu () and ().