Single room maternity care and client satisfaction

Background: Single room maternity cave is the provision of intrapartum and postpartum care in a single room. It promotes a philosophy! of family, cent ered cave in which one nurse cares for the family consistently throughout t he intrapartum and postpartum periods. At B.C. Women's Hospital, a tertiary level obstetric teaching hospital in Vancouver British Columbia, a seven-b ed, single room maternity cave unit was developed and opened as a demonstra tion project. As part of rite evaluation of this unit, client satisfaction was compared between women enrolled in single room maternity cal-e and thos e in a traditional setting. Method: The study included included 205 women w ho were admitted to the single room maternity care unit after meeting the l ow-risk criteria. Their responses oil a satisfaction survey were compared w ith those of a historical comparison group of 221 women meeting the same el igibility criteria who were identified through chart audits 3 months before the single room maternity care unit was opened. A second concurrent compar ison group comprised 104 women who also met eligibility criteria. Results: Study, group women were more satisfied than comparison groups in all areas evaluated including provision of information and support physical environme nt, nursing care, patient education, assistance with infant feeding, respec t for privacy, and preparation for discharge. Conclusions: Single room mate rnity cave was associated with a significant improvement in client satisfac tion because of many factors, including the physical setting itself avoidan ce of transfers, and improved continuity of nursing care.