Participatory Action Research at central hospital of Maputo: Stimulating male involvement in the respectful maternity care model

Evidence suggests that many women experience mistreatment during childbirth in health facilities by health care providers across the world, but the magnitude of the problem is unknown. The occurrence of disrespect and abuse in maternity care services affects the overall quality of care and may undermine women’s trust in the health system. 

Provider working relationships and environments not only affect their own emotional health, but also how they treat mothers during childbirth. Provider emotional health has the potential to drive (mis)treatment and affect women’s care(Ndwiga, Warren, Ritter, Sripad, & Abuya, 2017). Studies from the field of organizational development theory and from participatory action research suggests that individual or team identification and ownership of problems lead to more effective actions than do reporting of issues by external assessors(Wallerstein, Duran, Gedefaw, & Meulemans, 2010).

With this project we want to give power of change to the midwives, rather than by imposing change from outside. The project included different activities: interactive lectures with the midwives, a cross sectional study about disrespect and abuse in maternity care, an educational photo project about the rights of women and focus group discussions with the midwives. Throughout the project various feedback mechanisms were created between the researcher and midwives such as regular meetings and a WhatsApp group to share information.