Women’s satisfaction with existing labour and delivery services in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the pooled prevalence of women’s satisfaction with existing labour and delivery services in Ethiopia. DESIGN: Systematic review and meta-analysis. METHODS: MEDLINE/PubMed, Scopus, Hinari, Google Scholar and web of science electronic databases were searched for the study. This meta-analysis included nineteen cross-sectional studies. Cochrane I(2) statistics were used to check the heterogeneity of the studies. Subgroup and sensitivity analysis were conducted with the evidence of heterogeneity. Egger test with funnel plot were used to investigate publication bias. RESULT: Nineteen studies were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis. The overall prevalence of women’s satisfaction with existing labour and delivery services in Ethiopia was 70.54% (95% CI 60.94 to 80.15). Having informal education of the women (adjusted OR (AOR)=2.19; 95% CI 1.47 to 3.25), time to be seen by the healthcare providers within 20 min (AOR=2.97; 95% CI 2.11 to 4.19), receiving free service (AOR=5.01; 95% CI 2.87 to 8.75), keeping women privacy (AOR=2.84; 95% CI 1.46 to 5.55), planned delivery in the health institution (AOR=2.85; 95% CI 1.99 to 4.07), duration of labour within 12 hours (AOR=2.55; 95% CI 1.70 to 3.81) and have not antenatal care follow-up (AOR=4.03; 95% CI 2.21 to 7.35) were factors associated with women satisfaction with labour and delivery services in Ethiopia. CONCLUSION: The pooled prevalence of women’s satisfaction with existing labour and delivery services was high. Informal education of the women, antenatal care follow-up, planned delivery in the health institution, keeping women privacy, getting free service, time to be seen by the healthcare providers and duration of labour were factors associated with women’s satisfaction during labour and delivery services. This finding is important to design strategic policies and to prevent emergency neonatal and women complications during the childbirth and postpartum periods. PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER: CRD42020149217.