Table 1.

Showing categories and meaning units derived from the transcripts

Major categories or themes
	Awareness of obstetric fistula	Clinical presentation of obstetric fistula	Risk factors for obstetric fistula	Prevention of obstetric fistula
Categories	Women deliver from home or under unskilled care get difficult delivery and genital injury	-Leaking urine	-Delivery from home	(Address birth injury)
		-Poor	-Delivery from birth attendants	-Deliver from hospital to avoid difficult delivery and therefore birth injury
			-Injury to bladder
		-Abandoned
Leaking urine from childbirth injury	Condition related to difficult childbirth	-Always wet	-Sexual violence and rape with injury to genitalia
				-Care taken by doctors during surgical operation to ensure no bladder or genital injury
		-Must use pads
	-Persistent smell	-Can mot move out without padding herself
	-Woman is always wet and uses pads
			-Operative delivery
			-Operation by unskilled health workers
	-Woman covers herself with sacs
				-Deliver with a skilled attendant to avoid prolonged labor and birth injury
	-Woman leaves a patch of wetness where she has been seated
			-Manipulation –
			-Unskilled birth attendants
				-Examine genital tract after delivery or operation to identify tears
			-Rude health care providers
Misfortune	-Mother loses baby	-Adverse childbirth complications	-Bewitched	(Address misfortune)
			-Poverty
			-Married young
			-Not educated	Prevent early marriage
			-Gods unhappy
	-Mother is isolated
				-Address poverty
				-Educate girls
		-Difficult labor
		-Baby dies
	-Mother always smells urine	-Mother abandoned
		-Mother gets permanent injury	-Rape and physical violence
Stigma	Mother isolated	-Mother isolated	-Had induced abortion	Address stigma of fistula
	-Mother suffers ridicule	-Mother suffers ridicule
			-Had sex during menses	-Address misconceptions
	-Abandoned by relatives
	-Loses marriage	-Abandoned by relatives or family
		-Loses marriage	-Venereal disease	-Health education campaigns targeting men