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Health care workers’ experiences of managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia at health facilities in Northern Uganda

BACKGROUND: Birth asphyxia is one of the leading causes of intrapartum stillbirth and neonatal mortality worldwide. We sought to explore the experiences of health care workers in managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia to gain an understanding of the challenges in a low-income setting. METHODS:...

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Autores principales: Ayebare, Elizabeth, Ndeezi, Grace, Hjelmstedt, Anna, Nankunda, Jolly, Tumwine, James K., Hanson, Claudia, Jonas, Wibke
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7866477/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33546720
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-021-01083-1
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author Ayebare, Elizabeth
Ndeezi, Grace
Hjelmstedt, Anna
Nankunda, Jolly
Tumwine, James K.
Hanson, Claudia
Jonas, Wibke
author_facet Ayebare, Elizabeth
Ndeezi, Grace
Hjelmstedt, Anna
Nankunda, Jolly
Tumwine, James K.
Hanson, Claudia
Jonas, Wibke
author_sort Ayebare, Elizabeth
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Birth asphyxia is one of the leading causes of intrapartum stillbirth and neonatal mortality worldwide. We sought to explore the experiences of health care workers in managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia to gain an understanding of the challenges in a low-income setting. METHODS: We conducted in-depth interviews with 12 midwives and 4 doctors working in maternity units from different health facilities in Northern Uganda in 2018. We used a semi-structured interview guide which included questions related to; health care workers’ experiences of maternity care, care for foetal distress and birth asphyxia, views on possible preventive actions and perspectives of the community. Audio recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using inductive content analysis. RESULTS: Four categories emerged: (i) Understanding of and actions for foetal distress and birth asphyxia including knowledge, misconception and interventions; (ii) Challenges of managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia such as complexities of the referral system, refusal of referral, lack of equipment, and human resource problems, (iii) Expectations and blame from the community, and finally (iv) Health care worker’ insights into prevention of foetal distress and birth asphyxia. CONCLUSION: Health care workers described management of foetal distress and birth asphyxia as complex and challenging. Thus, guidelines to manage foetal distress and birth asphyxia that are specifically tailored to the different levels of health facilities to ensure high quality of care and reduction of need for referral are called for. Innovative ways to operationalise transportation for referral and community dialogues could lead to improved birth experiences and outcomes.
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spelling pubmed-78664772021-02-08 Health care workers’ experiences of managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia at health facilities in Northern Uganda Ayebare, Elizabeth Ndeezi, Grace Hjelmstedt, Anna Nankunda, Jolly Tumwine, James K. Hanson, Claudia Jonas, Wibke Reprod Health Research BACKGROUND: Birth asphyxia is one of the leading causes of intrapartum stillbirth and neonatal mortality worldwide. We sought to explore the experiences of health care workers in managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia to gain an understanding of the challenges in a low-income setting. METHODS: We conducted in-depth interviews with 12 midwives and 4 doctors working in maternity units from different health facilities in Northern Uganda in 2018. We used a semi-structured interview guide which included questions related to; health care workers’ experiences of maternity care, care for foetal distress and birth asphyxia, views on possible preventive actions and perspectives of the community. Audio recorded interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using inductive content analysis. RESULTS: Four categories emerged: (i) Understanding of and actions for foetal distress and birth asphyxia including knowledge, misconception and interventions; (ii) Challenges of managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia such as complexities of the referral system, refusal of referral, lack of equipment, and human resource problems, (iii) Expectations and blame from the community, and finally (iv) Health care worker’ insights into prevention of foetal distress and birth asphyxia. CONCLUSION: Health care workers described management of foetal distress and birth asphyxia as complex and challenging. Thus, guidelines to manage foetal distress and birth asphyxia that are specifically tailored to the different levels of health facilities to ensure high quality of care and reduction of need for referral are called for. Innovative ways to operationalise transportation for referral and community dialogues could lead to improved birth experiences and outcomes. BioMed Central 2021-02-05 /pmc/articles/PMC7866477/ /pubmed/33546720 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-021-01083-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Ayebare, Elizabeth
Ndeezi, Grace
Hjelmstedt, Anna
Nankunda, Jolly
Tumwine, James K.
Hanson, Claudia
Jonas, Wibke
Health care workers’ experiences of managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia at health facilities in Northern Uganda
title Health care workers’ experiences of managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia at health facilities in Northern Uganda
title_full Health care workers’ experiences of managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia at health facilities in Northern Uganda
title_fullStr Health care workers’ experiences of managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia at health facilities in Northern Uganda
title_full_unstemmed Health care workers’ experiences of managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia at health facilities in Northern Uganda
title_short Health care workers’ experiences of managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia at health facilities in Northern Uganda
title_sort health care workers’ experiences of managing foetal distress and birth asphyxia at health facilities in northern uganda
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7866477/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33546720
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12978-021-01083-1
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