ABSTRACT
Majority of the high maternal morbidities and mortalities in sub-Saharan Africa occur around the intrapartum period. These morbidities and mortalities although unpredictable, are treatable when diagnoses are made early and appropriate treatments are given. The aim of this study was to assess the quality of midwives' intrapartum care and women satisfaction in secondary healthcare facilities in Maiduguri metropolis, Borno state Nigeria. Five objectives were stated; to assess the available human resources (midwives) for intrapartum care, to assess the available material resources for intrapartum care, to assess the level of knowledge of midwives on intrapartum care, to assess the level of practice of midwives on intrapartum care and to assess the level of women satisfaction with intrapartum care. Donabedian framework was adopted for this study. A cross sectional descriptive research design was adopted for the study. Three secondary healthcare facilities in Maiduguri Metropolis were selected for data collection and a total of 43 midwives and 240 women were recruited in the study with response rate of 95%, 81% and 100% for knowledge, practice and satisfaction respectively. All the midwives were used for the study and convenient sampling technique was used to select the women for the study. Five tools were used for data collection, all privacy and confidentiality was maintained during the work and the data was collected from August to November, 2017.Results revealed that the mean age of the midwives was 35.2 years and 28.7 years for the women. The human resources were available but inadequate and material resources were available (42%) but inadequate for intrapartum care. According to the midwives' level of knowledge on intrapartum care, majority (78%) of the midwives have high level of knowledge. With regards their level of practice, 53.9% of the midwives' demonstrated high level of practice and 64.4% of the women were satisfied with the level of care during the intrapartum period with a mean of 2.4/4. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the human resources and material resources were available but inadequate, midwives level of knowledge was high with good level of practice and women were satisfied. It was recommended that adequate human and material resources should be provided by the government to meet the ever increasing demands of the population and adequate in-service training for midwives to upgrade the techniques necessary to assess, evaluate and improve the quality of care rendered to women in labour.