Maternal near miss and quality of maternal health care in Baghdad, Iraq

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Abstract

Background

The maternal near-miss concept has been developed as an instrument for assisting health systems to evaluate and improve their quality of care. Our study aimed at studying the characteristics and quality of care provided to women with severe complications in Baghdad through the use of the World Health Organization (WHO) near-miss approach for maternal health.

Methods

This is a facility-based, cross-sectional study conducted in 6 public hospitals in Baghdad between March 1, 2010 and the June 30, 2010. WHO near-miss approach was utilized to analyze the data in terms of indicators of maternal near miss and access to and quality of maternal care.

Results

The maternal near-miss rate was low at 5.06 per 1,000 live births, while the overall maternal near miss: mortality ratio was 9:1. One third of the near-miss cases were referred from other facilities and the mortality index was the same for referred women and for in-hospital women (11%). The intensive care unit (ICU) admission rate was 37% for women with severe maternal outcomes (SMO), while the overall admission rate was 0.28%. Anemia (55%) and previous cesarean section (45%) were the most common associated conditions with severe maternal morbidity. The use of magnesium sulfate for treatment of eclampsia, oxytocin for prevention and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage, prophylactic antibiotics during caesarean section, and corticosteroids for inducing fetal lung maturation in preterm birth is suboptimum.

Conclusions

The WHO near-miss approach allowed systematic identification of the roadblocks to improve quality of care and then monitoring the progress. Critical evidence-based practices, relevant to the management of women experiencing life-threatening conditions, are underused. In addition, possible limitations in the referral system result in a very high proportion of women presenting at the hospital already in a severe health condition (i.e. with organ dysfunction). A shortage of ICU beds leading to women taken care of without admission to ICU may also contribute to a high proportion of maternal deaths and organ dysfunction.

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Maternal near miss--towards a standard tool for monitoring quality of maternal health care.

Lale Say, João Souza, Robert C Pattinson … (2009)

Maternal mortality is still among the worst performing health indicators in resource-poor settings. For deaths occurring in health facilities, it is crucial to understand the processes of obstetric care in order to address any identified weakness or failure within the system and take corrective action. However, although a significant public health problem, maternal deaths are rare in absolute numbers especially within an individual facility. Studying cases of women who nearly died but survived a complication during pregnancy, childbirth or postpartum (maternal near miss or severe acute maternal morbidity) are increasingly recognized as useful means to examine quality of obstetric care. Nevertheless, routine implementation and wider application of this concept in reviewing clinical care has been limited due to the lack of a standard definition and uniform case-identification criteria. WHO has initiated a process in agreeing on a definition and developing a uniform set of identification criteria for maternal near miss cases aiming to facilitate the reviews of these cases for monitoring and improving quality of obstetric care. A list of identification criteria was proposed together with one single definition. This article presents the proposed definition and the identification criteria of maternal near miss cases. It also suggests procedures to make maternal near miss audits operational in monitoring/evaluating quality of obstetric care. The practical implementation of maternal near miss concept should provide an important contribution to improving quality of obstetric care to reduce maternal deaths and improve maternal health.

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WHO systematic review of maternal morbidity and mortality: the prevalence of severe acute maternal morbidity (near miss)

Lale Say, Robert C Pattinson, A Gülmezoglu (2004)

Aim To determine the prevalence of severe acute maternal morbidity (SAMM) worldwide (near miss). Method Systematic review of all available data. The methodology followed a pre-defined protocol, an extensive search strategy of 10 electronic databases as well as other sources. Articles were evaluated according to specified inclusion criteria. Data were extracted using data extraction instrument which collects additional information on the quality of reporting including definitions and identification of cases. Data were entered into a specially constructed database and tabulated using SAS statistical management and analysis software. Results A total of 30 studies are included in the systematic review. Designs are mainly cross-sectional and 24 were conducted in hospital settings, mostly teaching hospitals. Fourteen studies report on a defined SAMM condition while the remainder use a response to an event such as admission to intensive care unit as a proxy for SAMM. Criteria for identification of cases vary widely across studies. Prevalences vary between 0.80% – 8.23% in studies that use disease-specific criteria while the range is 0.38% – 1.09% in the group that use organ-system based criteria and included unselected group of women. Rates are within the range of 0.01% and 2.99% in studies using management-based criteria. It is not possible to pool data together to provide summary estimates or comparisons between different settings due to variations in case-identification criteria. Nevertheless, there seems to be an inverse trend in prevalence with development status of a country. Conclusion There is a clear need to set uniform criteria to classify patients as SAMM. This standardisation could be made for similar settings separately. An organ-system dysfunction/failure approach is the most epidemiologically sound as it is least open to bias, and thus could permit developing summary estimates.

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Incidence and predictors of severe obstetric morbidity: case-control study.

Kevin C. Wolfe, S Bewley, M Waterstone (2001)

To estimate the incidence and predictors of severe obstetric morbidity. Development of definitions of severe obstetric morbidity by literature review. Case-control study from a defined delivery population with four randomly selected pregnant women as controls for every case. All 19 maternity units within the South East Thames region and six neighbouring hospitals caring for pregnant women from the region between 1 March 1997 and 28 February 1998. 48 865 women who delivered during the time frame. There were 588 cases of severe obstetric morbidity giving an incidence of 12.0/1000 deliveries (95% confidence interval 11.2 to 13.2). During the study there were five maternal deaths attributed to conditions studied. Disease specific morbidities per 1000 deliveries were 6.7 (6.0 to 7.5) for severe haemorrhage, 3.9 (3.3 to 4.5) for severe pre-eclampsia, 0.2 (0.1 to 0.4) for eclampsia, 0.5 (0.3 to 0.8) for HELLP (Haemolysis, Elevated Liver enzymes, and Low Platelets) syndrome, 0.4 (0.2 to 0.6) for severe sepsis, and 0.2 (0.1 to 0.4) for uterine rupture. Age over 34 years, non-white ethnic group, past or current hypertension, previous postpartum haemorrhage, delivery by emergency caesarean section, antenatal admission to hospital, multiple pregnancy, social exclusion, and taking iron or anti-depressants at antenatal booking were all independently associated with morbidity after adjustment. Severe obstetric morbidity and its relation to mortality may be more sensitive measures of pregnancy outcome than mortality alone. Most events are related to obstetric haemorrhage and severe pre-eclampsia. Caesarean section quadruples the risk of morbidity. Development and evaluation of ways of predicting and reducing risk are required with particular emphasis paid on the management of haemorrhage and pre-eclampsia.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Pregnancy Childbirth

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Pregnancy Childbirth

Title: BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth

Publisher: BioMed Central

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-2393

Publication date Collection: 2013

Publication date (Electronic): 16 January 2013

Volume: 13

Page: 11

Affiliations

[1 ]Baghdad Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq

[2 ]Department of Health and Biostatistics /Ministry of Health, Baghdad, Iraq

[3 ]Al-Yermouk Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq

[4 ]Al-Kadimeyah Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq

[5 ]Al-Elwiyah Maternity Teaching Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq

[6 ]Ibn Al-Bildi Hospital for Women and Children, Baghdad, Iraq

[7 ]Fatima Al-Zahraa' Maternity Hospital, Baghdad, Iraq

[8 ]Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 N Wolfe St, Baltimore, MD, 21205, USA

[9 ]Department of Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland

Article

Publisher ID: 1471-2393-13-11

DOI: 10.1186/1471-2393-13-11

PMC ID: 3558361

PubMed ID: 23324222

SO-VID: f3d9d424-bb25-4d8e-87fe-4301233b7864

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Maternal near miss and quality of maternal health care in Baghdad, Iraq

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Abstract

Background

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Advocacy for Maternal and Women’s Health

Most cited references 10

Maternal near miss--towards a standard tool for monitoring quality of maternal health care.

WHO systematic review of maternal morbidity and mortality: the prevalence of severe acute maternal morbidity (near miss)

Incidence and predictors of severe obstetric morbidity: case-control study.

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