Strategies for development, follow-up, and assessment of care provided to women in the pregnancy-postnatal cycle

• Published in: Revista panamericana de salud pública Vol. 37; no. 6; pp. 388 - 394
• Main Authors: Holanda, Cristyanne Samara Miranda de, Alchieri, João Carlos, Morais, Fátima Raquel Rosado, Maranhão, Técia Maria de Oliveira
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Portuguese
• Published: United States 01.06.2015
• Subjects: Adult; Brazil; Female; Focus Groups; Health Care Surveys; Health Services Needs and Demand; Humans; Maternal Health Services - organization & administration; Patient Satisfaction; Pilot Projects; Postnatal Care - organization & administration; Pregnancy; Prenatal Care - organization & administration; Reproducibility of Results; Surveys and Questionnaires
• ISSN: 1680-5348

To describe the development of a questionnaire for assessment of prenatal, birth, and postnatal care (Inventário de Avaliação da Assistência ao Pré-natal, Parto e Puerpério, IAAPPP), which was designed taking into consideration the experience of users of a public obstetric service. This mixed methods research was performed in the city of Caicó, state of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil. The study consisted of two phases: in phase 1, focal groups were organized with 19 users of the health care system for identification of relevant issues for assessment of the pregnancy-postnatal cycle. The first draft of the questionnaire was also designed and tested for validity with seven of the 19 focal group participants; a second draft was produced and retested. In phase 2, the intra-class correlation coefficient was calculated to determine reproducibility. A pilot test was carried out to determine the applicability of the survey and the final version of the IAAPPP was developed. Based on the focal group discussions, the inventory was organized into four domains: 1) socioeconomic information, 2) obstetric history, 3) description of current obstetric experience and 4) assessment of follow-up. Domains 3 and 4 were subdivided into prenatal care, birthcare, postnatal care, and pregnancy-postnatal cycle. The answers of the women who evaluated the instrument for domain 4 were strongly correlated (>0.8), indicating reproducibility of the IAAPPP. The methodological model allowed us to identify needs and demands of women in the pregnancy-postnatal cycle, and allowed us to design a questionnaire that can be applied to other regions with similar sociocultural characteristics.