Impact of Health Care Provider’s Training on Patients’ Communication During Labor at Omdurman Maternity Hospital, Sudan 2011

Abstract

Background: Comprehensive patient’s health care provider’s (HCP) communication usually increases patients’ participation in their health management on childbirth.
Objective: This is a quasi interventional study for assessing impact of health care providers (HCP) training on patient- provider’s communication during childbirth in the labour ward at Omdurman Maternity Hospital during 2011.
Material and Methods: A situation analysis was done before training to assess existing practice of providers’ communication skills and patient’s satisfaction. All care providers in labour ward were trained and their practice was assessed before and after training. A ten percent sample of patients delivered in hospital before and after training was used to assess providers’ practice. Results were analyzed using SPSS version 18.
Results: Health care providers, included were 225 (120/ 105) and interviewed women were, 4469 (2000/ 2469) before and after training respectively. Before training, patients were informed on onset of labour (76.8%), requested investigations (54.9%), permission for vaginal examination (60.3%) and when given antibiotics (85.1%), which improved significantly after training. No improvement in information on adverse effect of drugs and procedures or taking of an informed consent. Patient’s opinion on health care providers’ behavior after delivery in labour ward, were supportive, friendly and respectful (89.7%) and (94.6%) with improved satisfaction (89.8%) and (95.7%) before and after training respectively.
Conclusion: The study showed that training of health care providers on communication skills has effective improvement on HCP knowledge and practice towards communication with patients in many areas during labour with resulting good patient’s satisfaction. However, improvement in communication skills need sustained in-service training.

Key words: patients- providers’ communication, satisfaction, Sudan.