Communication related expectations and actual experiences of pregnant women

Abstract

Objective: The main objective of this survey is to define and evaluate the expectations and actual experiences of pregnant women about communication skills and practices of health staff, which are located in the centre of the quality of health-care delivery. Design: This descriptive survey is based on the implementation of a scale of emphatic communication competencies of health staff. Location and Setting The study was carried out in the prenatal care clinics of a training maternity hospital in Ankara. Participants and Method The study group consisted of 100 pregnant women who applied to prenatal care clinics of a maternity hospital from September 2006 to Match 2007 and voluntarily accepted to fill out a questionnaire of 32 items for socio-demographic-cultural characteristics and a scale of 17 items on emphatic communication competencies of health staff. Results: In general expectancy scores of the pregnant women about almost all types of empathic communication practices were found to be higher than the actual experience scores. Differences between the scores were found to be statistically significant (p<0,01). Reliability, honesty and cheerfulness are the first three highly expected empathic communication competencies of health staff. Pregnant women underlined that 'frankness' and 'tolerance' are not among the common actual practices of health staff. Conclusion: As a target group of specific and high sensitivity for health care, the pregnant women play an important role by their feed back for communication expectancies and actual experiences to assess the quality of health services. Their satisfaction levels show the situation of the relations between the users and providers of health care. This study, which is the first of its kind in Turkey, provides realistic data to be used in planning of quality improvement activities in health care.