Factors influencing referrals for ultrasound-diagnosed complications during prenatal care in five low and middle income countries.

BACKGROUND: Ultrasound during antenatal care (ANC) is proposed as a strategy for increasing hospital deliveries for complicated pregnancies and improving maternal, fetal, and neonatal outcomes. The First Look study was a cluster-randomized trial conducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Guatemala, Kenya, Pakistan and Zambia to evaluate the impact of ANC-ultrasound on these outcomes. An additional survey was conducted to identify factors influencing women with complicated pregnancies to attend referrals for additional care. METHODS: Women who received referral due to ANC ultrasound findings participated in structured interviews to characterize their experiences. Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel statistics were used to examine differences between women who attended the referral and women who did not. Sonographers' exam findings were compared to referred women's recall. RESULTS: Among 700 referred women, 510 (71%) attended the referral. Among referred women, 97% received a referral card to present at the hospital, 91% were told where to go in the hospital, and 64% were told that the hospital was expecting them. The referred women who were told who to see at the hospital (88% vs 66%), where to go (94% vs 82%), or what should happen, were more likely to attend their referral (68% vs 56%). Barriers to attending referrals were cost, transportation, and distance. Barriers after reaching the hospital were substantial. These included not connecting with an appropriate provider, not knowing where to go, and being told to return later. These barriers at the hospital often led to an unsuccessful referral. CONCLUSIONS: Our study found that ultrasound screening at ANC alone does not adequately address barriers to referrals. Better communication between the sonographer and the patient increases the likelihood of a completed referral. These types of communication include describing the ultrasound findings, including the reason for the referral, to the mother and staff; providing a referral card; describing where to go in the hospital; and explaining the procedures at the hospital. Thus, there are three levels of communication that need to be addressed to increase completion of appropriate referrals-communication between the sonographer and the woman, the sonographer and the clinic staff, and the sonographer and the hospital. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT01990625 .

Early identification of preterm neonates at birth with a Tablet App for the Simplified Gestational Age Score (T-SGAS) when ultrasound gestational age dating is unavailable: A validation study.

BACKGROUND: In low resource settings recall of the date of the mother's last menstrual period may be unreliable and due to limited availability of prenatal ultrasound, gestational age of newborns may not be assessed reliably. Preterm babies are at high risk of morbidity and mortality so an alternative strategy is to identify them soon after birth is needed for early referral and management. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to assess the accuracy in assessing prematurity of newborn, over and above birthweight, using a pictorial Simplified Gestational Age Score adapted for use as a Tablet App. METHODS: Two trained nurse midwives, blinded to each other's assessment and the actual gestational age of the baby used the app to assess gestational age at birth in 3 hospitals based on the following 4 parameters-newborn's posture, skin texture, breast and genital development. Inter-observer variation was evaluated and the optimal scoring cut-off to detect preterm birth was determined. Sensitivity and specificity of gestational age score using the tablet was estimated using combinations of last menstrual period and ultrasound as reference standards to assess preterm birth. The predictive accuracy of the score using the area under a receiver operating characteristic curve was also determined. To account for potential reference standard bias, we also evaluated the score using latent class models. RESULTS: A total of 8,591 live singleton births whose gestational age by last menstrual period and ultrasound was within 1 weeks of each other were enrolled. There was strong agreement between assessors (concordance correlation coefficient 0.77 (95% CI 0.76-0.78) and Fleiss' kappa was 0.76 (95% CI 0.76-0.78). The optimal cut-off for the score to predict preterm was 13. Irrespective of the reference standard, the specificity of the score was 90% and sensitivity varied from 40-50% and the predictive accuracy between 74%-79% for the reference standards. The likelihood ratio of a positive score varied between 3.75-4.88 while the same for a negative likelihood ratio consistently varied between 0.57-0.72. Latent class models showed similar results indicating no reference standard bias. CONCLUSION: Gestational age scores had strong inter-observer agreement, robust prediction of preterm births simplicity of use by nurse midwives and can be a useful tool in resource-limited scenarios. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The Tablet App for the Simplified Gestational Age Score (T-SGAS) study was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02408783.

Early Identification of Preterm Neonates at Birth With a Tablet App for the Simplified Gestational Age Score (T-SGAS) When Ultrasound Gestational Age Dating Is Unavailable: Protocol for a Validation Study.

BACKGROUND: Although rates of preterm birth continue to increase globally, identification of preterm from low birth weight infants remains a challenge. The burden of low birth weight vs preterm is greatest in resource-limited settings, where gestational age (GA) prior to delivery is frequently not known because ultrasound in early pregnancy is not available and estimates of the date of the mother's last menstrual period (LMP) may not be reliable. An alternative option is to assess GA at birth to optimize referral and care of preterm newborns. We previously developed and pilot-tested a system to measure the simplified gestational age score (SGAS) based on 4 easily observable neonatal characteristics. OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study is to adapt the scoring system as a tablet app (potentially scalable approach) to assess feasibility of use and to validate whether the scoring system accurately predicts prematurity by itself, over and above birth weight in a large sample of newborns. METHODS: The study is based in Nagpur, India, at the Research Unit of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Global Network for Women's and Children's Health Research. The Android tablet app for the SGAS (T-SGAS) displays de-identified photographs of skin, breasts, and genitalia across a range of GAs and line drawings of infant posture. Each item is associated with a score. The user is trained to choose the photograph or line drawing that most closely matches the newborn being evaluated, and the app determines the neonate's GA category (preterm or term) from the cumulative score. The validation study will be conducted in 3 second level care facilities (most deliveries in India occur in hospitals, and women known to be at risk of preterm birth are referred to second level care facilities). Within 24 hours of delivery, women and their babies who are stable will be enrolled in the study. Two auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) blinded to prior GA assessments will use the T-SGAS to estimate the GA status of the newborn. An independent data collector will abstract the GA from the ultrasound recorded in the hospital chart and record the date of the mother's LMP. Eligibility for analysis is determined by the ultrasound and LMP data being collected within 1 week of each other to have a rigorous assessment of true GA. RESULTS: Publication of the results of the study is anticipated in 2019. CONCLUSIONS: Until GA dating by ultrasound is universally available and easy to use in resource-limited settings, and where there are restrictions on ultrasound use due to their use for sex determination and abortion of female fetuses, this study will determine whether the T-SGAS app can accurately assess GA in risk categories at birth. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02408783; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02408783 (Archived by Webcite at http://www.webcitation.org/75S2kmr3T). INTERNATIONAL REGISTERED REPORT IDENTIFIER (IRRID): DERR1-10.2196/11913.

Including ultrasound scans in antenatal care in low-resource settings: Considering the complementarity of obstetric ultrasound screening and maternity waiting homes in strengthening referral systems in low-resource, rural settings.

Recent World Health Organization (WHO) antenatal care recommendations include an ultrasound scan as a part of routine antenatal care. The First Look Study, referenced in the WHO recommendation, subsequently shows that the routine use of ultrasound during antenatal care in rural, low-income settings did not improve maternal, fetal or neonatal mortality, nor did it increase women's use of antenatal care or the rate of hospital births. This article reviews the First Look Study, reconsidering the assumptions upon which it was built in light of these results, a supplemental descriptive study of interviews with patients and sonographers that participated in the First Look study intervention, and a review of the literature. Two themes surface from this review. The first is that focused emphasis on building the pregnancy risk screening skills of rural primary health care personnel may not lead to adaptations in referral hospital processes that could benefit the patient accordingly. The second is that agency to improve the quality of patient reception at referral hospitals may need to be manufactured for obstetric ultrasound screening, or remote pregnancy risk screening more generally, to have the desired impact. Stemming from the literature, this article goes on to examine the potential for complementarity between obstetric ultrasound screening and another approach encouraged by the WHO, the maternity waiting home. Each approach may address existing shortcomings in how the other is currently understood. This paper concludes by proposing a path toward developing and testing such a hybrid approach.