Women’s Experience of Disrespect and Abuse during Institutional Delivery in Biratnagar, Nepal

Worldwide, a large number of women experience disrespectful and abusive behavior from care providers during childbirth. This violates the rights of women to attain respectful care. This study aimed to find out the women’s experience of disrespect and abuse during institutional delivery. A cross-sectional study was conducted in two hospitals of Morang district situated in eastern Nepal. Two hundred eighteen women from a public hospital and 109 women from a private hospital (N = 327) with normal vaginal delivery were selected purposively for this study. Data were collected through face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire based on the Disrespectful and Abusive Scale by Bowser and Hill. All women had experienced at least one type of disrespect and/or abuse during labor and delivery, most common being non-consented care (100%), non-dignified care (72%), and non-confidential care (66.6%), respectively. Discriminatory care and physical abuse were experienced by 32.33% and 13.23%, respectively. Ethnicity, religion, place of delivery, and numbers of living children were the main predictors of reporting disrespect and abuse. Overall, the occurrence of disrespect and abuse during institutional delivery was found to be very high.