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Experiences of primary care physicians managing postpartum care: a qualitative research study

BACKGROUND: The postpartum period is redefined as 12 weeks following childbirth. Primary care physicians (PCP) often manage postpartum women in the community after uneventful childbirths. Postpartum care significantly impacts on the maternal and neonatal physical and mental health. However, evidence...

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Autores principales: Poon, Zhimin, Lee, Esther Cui Wei, Ang, Li Ping, Tan, Ngiap Chuan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8244666/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34193053
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-021-01494-w
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author Poon, Zhimin
Lee, Esther Cui Wei
Ang, Li Ping
Tan, Ngiap Chuan
author_facet Poon, Zhimin
Lee, Esther Cui Wei
Ang, Li Ping
Tan, Ngiap Chuan
author_sort Poon, Zhimin
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The postpartum period is redefined as 12 weeks following childbirth. Primary care physicians (PCP) often manage postpartum women in the community after uneventful childbirths. Postpartum care significantly impacts on the maternal and neonatal physical and mental health. However, evidence has revealed unmet needs in postpartum maternal care. AIM: The study aimed to explore the experiences of PCPs in managing postpartum mothers. METHODS: Four focus group discussions and eleven in-depth interviews with twenty-nine PCPs were conducted in this qualitative research study in urban Singapore. PCPs of both gender and variable postgraduate training background were purposively enrolled. Audited transcripts were independently coded by two investigators. Thematic content analysis was performed using the codes to identify issues in the “clinician”, “mother”, “postpartum care” and “healthcare system & policy” domains stipulated in “The Generalists’ Wheel of Knowledge, Understanding and Inquiry” framework. FINDINGS: PCPs’ personal attributes such as gender and knowledge influenced their postpartum care delivery. Prior training, child caring experience and access to resource materials contributed to their information mastery of postpartum care. Their professional relationship with local multi-ethic and multi-lingual Asian mothers was impacted by their mutual communication, language compatibility and understanding of local confinement practices. Consultation time constraint, awareness of community postnatal services and inadequate handover of care from the specialists hindered PCPs in the healthcare system. DISCUSSION: Personal, maternal and healthcare system barriers currently prevent PCPs from delivering optimal postpartum care. CONCLUSION: Interventions to overcome the barriers to improve postpartum care will likely be multi-faceted across domains discussed. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12875-021-01494-w.
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spelling pubmed-82446662021-07-01 Experiences of primary care physicians managing postpartum care: a qualitative research study Poon, Zhimin Lee, Esther Cui Wei Ang, Li Ping Tan, Ngiap Chuan BMC Fam Pract Research BACKGROUND: The postpartum period is redefined as 12 weeks following childbirth. Primary care physicians (PCP) often manage postpartum women in the community after uneventful childbirths. Postpartum care significantly impacts on the maternal and neonatal physical and mental health. However, evidence has revealed unmet needs in postpartum maternal care. AIM: The study aimed to explore the experiences of PCPs in managing postpartum mothers. METHODS: Four focus group discussions and eleven in-depth interviews with twenty-nine PCPs were conducted in this qualitative research study in urban Singapore. PCPs of both gender and variable postgraduate training background were purposively enrolled. Audited transcripts were independently coded by two investigators. Thematic content analysis was performed using the codes to identify issues in the “clinician”, “mother”, “postpartum care” and “healthcare system & policy” domains stipulated in “The Generalists’ Wheel of Knowledge, Understanding and Inquiry” framework. FINDINGS: PCPs’ personal attributes such as gender and knowledge influenced their postpartum care delivery. Prior training, child caring experience and access to resource materials contributed to their information mastery of postpartum care. Their professional relationship with local multi-ethic and multi-lingual Asian mothers was impacted by their mutual communication, language compatibility and understanding of local confinement practices. Consultation time constraint, awareness of community postnatal services and inadequate handover of care from the specialists hindered PCPs in the healthcare system. DISCUSSION: Personal, maternal and healthcare system barriers currently prevent PCPs from delivering optimal postpartum care. CONCLUSION: Interventions to overcome the barriers to improve postpartum care will likely be multi-faceted across domains discussed. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12875-021-01494-w. BioMed Central 2021-06-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8244666/ /pubmed/34193053 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-021-01494-w Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://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
Poon, Zhimin
Lee, Esther Cui Wei
Ang, Li Ping
Tan, Ngiap Chuan
Experiences of primary care physicians managing postpartum care: a qualitative research study
title Experiences of primary care physicians managing postpartum care: a qualitative research study
title_full Experiences of primary care physicians managing postpartum care: a qualitative research study
title_fullStr Experiences of primary care physicians managing postpartum care: a qualitative research study
title_full_unstemmed Experiences of primary care physicians managing postpartum care: a qualitative research study
title_short Experiences of primary care physicians managing postpartum care: a qualitative research study
title_sort experiences of primary care physicians managing postpartum care: a qualitative research study
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8244666/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34193053
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12875-021-01494-w
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