Postpartum or “zuo yue zi” services are well-received among Chinese communities such as Taiwan, China, Singapore, and Malaysia. The postpartum services which are provided by confinement center or confinement lady are designed to support postpartum women’s needs and regain their health. Prior studies revealed that the postpartum service could provide postpartum women with social support which resulted in reduced postpartum stress and improved general health. Most researchers conducted studies emphasizing on the physical environment of a confinement center or investigating the factors that influence the postpartum women’s satisfaction. Many studies have demonstrated that patient-centered care is an important factor in establishing a healing relationship and effectively drives patient engagement and healing process, enhances patients’ confidence in managing their health, improves patient well-being, etc. Therefore, this research attempted to examine the impact of postpartum women-centered care towards the quality of the postpartum care. Engagement was proposed as the mediating variable to investigate whether postpartum women-centered care can drive the postpartum women’s engagement and eventually improve the quality of care. In addition, patient-practitioner orientation preference was tested whether it moderates the relationship between postpartum women-centered behavior and quality of care. The research sample for this study was the women who had the experience of using postpartum service in Taiwan and a questionnaire was used to collect the data. In order to verify the research hypotheses, this research utilized AMOS 18.0 and SPSS 17.0 program to conduct structural equation modeling and multiple regression analysis respectively. The analysis results showed that postpartum women-centered care had significant and positive effect on quality of care. Meanwhile, the mediating effect of postpartum women engagement and moderating effect of orientation preference were not significant. These empirical results indicated postpartum women-centered care plays an important role in delivering high quality care; service providers should train their caregivers (confinement ladies) to identify the specific needs of their clients and adjust their behaviors in accordance with the mother’s condition.

Keywords: Postpartum Service; Patient-centered Care; Patient Engagement; Patient–Practitioner Orientation Scale; Quality of Care