40An antenatal care indicator based on contact with services and content developed for 63 countries

Background

Most antenatal care (ANC) indicators in use are criticized for considering only contact with services and not taking into account content of care. We aimed to create and validate a new indicator measured as a score, considering both contact and content, that can be used for monitoring.

Methods

We used data from national surveys conducted in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Information on ANC was used to build an adequacy score (ANCq) that would be applicable to all women in need of ANC. We used a convergent validation approach, exploring the association of our proposed indicator with neonatal mortality.

Results

The ANCq score was derived from seven variables related to contact with services and content of care ranging from zero to ten. Surveys from 63 countries with all variables were used. The overall mean of ANCq was 6.7, ranging from 3.5 in Afghanistan to 9.3 in Cuba and the Dominican Republic. In most countries, the ANCq was inversely associated with neonatal mortality and the pooled for all surveys Odds Ratio was 0.90 (95% CI = 0.88-0.92).

Conclusions

The ANCq presented good validity properties, being a useful tool for assessing ANC coverage and adequacy of care in monitoring and accountability exercises.

Key messages

ANCq provides a standardized and comparable measure of ANC adequacy, allowing for comparisons between country population subgroups and between countries.

Armed conflicts and national trends in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health in sub-Saharan Africa: what can national health surveys tell us?

Armed conflicts are widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and considered to be an important factor in slowing down national progress in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health (RMNCH). The measurement of the impact of conflicts on national levels and trends in RMNCH is difficult. National surveys conducted before and sometimes during and after conflicts are a major source of information on the national and local effects of conflicts on RMNCH. We examined data from national surveys in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa with major conflicts during 1990–2016 to assess the levels and trends in RMNCH intervention coverage, nutritional status and mortality in children under 5 years in comparison with subregional trends. The surveys provide substantive evidence of a negative association between levels and trends in national indicators of RMNCH service coverage, child growth and under-5 mortality with armed conflict, with some notable exceptions. National surveys are an important source of data to assess the longer term national consequences of conflicts for RMNCH in most countries, despite limitations due to sampling and timing of the surveys.

A cross sectional study of maternal 'near-miss' cases in major public hospitals in Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria

Background

The maternal near-miss approach has been increasingly used as a tool to evaluate and improve the quality of care in maternal health. We report findings from the formative stage of a World Health Organization (WHO) funded implementation research study that was undertaken to collect primary data at the facility level on the prevalence, characteristics, and management of maternal near-miss cases in four major public referral hospitals - one each in Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria.

Methods

We conducted a cross sectional study of maternal near-miss cases in the four contexts beginning in 2011, where we collected data on severe maternal morbidity in the four study hospitals, using the WHO form (Individual Form HRP A65661). In each hospital, a research team including trained hospital healthcare providers carried out the data collection.

Results

A total of 9,063 live birth deliveries were reported during the data collection period across the four settings, with a total of 77 cases of severe maternal outcomes (71 maternal near-miss cases and 6 maternal deaths). Higher indices for the maternal mortality index were found in both Al Galaa hospital, in Egypt (8.6 %) and Dar Al Tawleed hospital in Syria (14.3 %), being large referral hospitals, compared to Ramallah hospital in Palestine and Rafik Hariri University hospital in Lebanon. Compared to the WHO’s Multicountry Survey using the same data collection tool, our study’s mortality indices are higher than the index of 5.6 % among countries with a moderate maternal mortality ratio in the WHO Survey. Overall, haemorrhage-related complications were the most frequent conditions among maternal near-miss cases across the four study hospitals. In all hospitals, coagulation dysfunctions (76.1 %) were the most prevalent dysfunction among maternal near-miss cases, followed by cardiovascular dysfunctions. The coverage of key evidence-based interventions among women experiencing a near-miss was either universal or very high in the study hospitals.

Conclusions

Findings from this formative stage confirmed the need for quality improvement interventions. The high reported coverage of the main clinical interventions in the study hospitals would appear to be in contradiction with the above findings as the level of coverage of key evidence-based interventions was high.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12884-015-0733-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.