“If I am alive, I am happy”: Defining quality of care from the perspectives of key maternal and newborn health stakeholders in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Quality maternal and newborn healthcare is essential to improve experiences and health outcomes for mothers and babies. In many low to middle income countries, such as Papua New Guinea, there are initiatives to increase antenatal care attendance and facility births. To develop and implement initiatives that are appropriate, relevant, and contextualised to a community, it is important to understand how quality of care is perceived and defined by different maternal and newborn healthcare stakeholders. The aim of this study was to understand how women, their partners, healthcare professionals, healthcare managers, and provincial health administrators in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea define quality of pregnancy, childbirth, and immediate postnatal care. An exploratory qualitative study underpinned by a partnership-defined quality approach was undertaken. In total, 42 participants from five different healthcare facilities in East New Britain, Papua New Guinea, were interviewed. These included women, partners, healthcare professionals, healthcare managers, and provincial health administrators. Interviews were analysed using thematic analysis, assisted by NVivo computer software. Four themes were identified aligning with the journey a woman takes throughout the health system. These included (I) Ensuring Access: Arriving at the health centre, (II) Experiencing Positive Care: What the staff do, (III) Having the Bare Minimum: Resources available to the service, and (IV) Meeting Expectations: Outcomes of care. Stakeholder groups had significant overlap in how quality of care was defined, however women and partners focussed more on elements relating to experience of care, while clinical stakeholders focussed on elements relating to provision of care. There is a gap in how stakeholders define quality maternal and newborn healthcare, and the quality of the care which is administered and received.