View clinical trials related to Antenatal Care and Delivery.
Filter by:Background: Nigeria has the second highest absolute number of maternal deaths and perinatal deaths in the world. The country contributes 14% of all maternal deaths worldwide, second only to India. Although all parts of the country are affected, most maternal, and perinatal deaths occur in the northeast and northwest geo-political zones, where women have limited access to evidence-based maternal and newborn health services. Affected women and families are mainly those who have little or no formal education, who are poor and marginalized, and who live in rural and sub-urban communities. Problem: Research carried out in various regions of Nigeria has shown that insufficient access to pregnancy health services is a major factor that places women at high risk of adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes. Maternal care provided within Nigeria's numerous local Primary Health Centres (PHCs) is an efficient and practical avenue for reaching vulnerable women and their newborn infants, and PHC use is strongly encouraged by the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health. Research Question and Objective: The key research question and objectives are as follows: 1) To determine the main factors that prevent vulnerable women from using PHCs or receiving maternal and neonatal care therein; 2) To identify effective community level interventions for improving women's access to maternal health services, as a means to reduce maternal and perinatal morbidity and mortality in Nigeria. Methodology: This study will complete a community-based, multi-site project using a mixed methods approach. The project will be done in three sequential phases: A data gathering phase (Phase 1), an intervention phase (Phase 2), and the implementation of the findings (Phase 3). The study will be conducted over 54-months in six communities, and another six communities of similar status will serve as control sites. During Phases 1-3, surveys about maternal health services utilization will be carried out at baseline, midterm and completion points of the project. Potential Impact: Increasing women's access to evidence-based maternity care is likely a direct way to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality in Nigeria. The proposed project will determine how we can effectively increase access to PHCs, and then bring those findings into a policy and program format that can be applied across the country.
Besides a dramatic lack of financial and human resources in developing countries, health care is additionally endangered by quality deficiencies caused by low staff motivation. This lack of motivation leads to an insufficient translation of knowledge into optimal utilization of resources. The "know-do" gap represents a challenge that must be addressed to strengthen health services performance towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). This is in particular true for some sensitive sectors like pre-natal and maternal health care. General objective of this research is to improve maternal health through better pre-natal and maternal care services offered by better motivated health workers. A computer-assisted clinical decision support system (CDSS) will be developed, implemented and tested aiming at (I) quality improvement of maternal and newborn care and (II) assessment of provider's performance. Based on this tool a commonly agreed incentive scheme to increase motivation will be shaped and tested in three SSA - countries, namely Burkina, Ghana, and Tanzania. The incentive scheme might contain both non-monetary and monetary incentives and will be designed according to the human resource policy in the three countries. The planned approach is an implementation study with control arms containing one hospital and 6 first line health facilities in each of the study districts and an equal number of facilities in the control arm. A set of indicators for measurement of changes in quality of delivered services will be identified in order to follow up the sustainability and effectiveness of the strategies after their implementation. The study findings will allow understanding the important factors of staff motivation and facilitate adequate management for improvement of maternal and neonatal health care. "Knowing is not enough, we must apply; Wanting to do, is not enough, we must do it1" - J.W. v. Goethe