Care Providers’ Perspectives on Quality Prenatal Care in High-risk Pregnancies: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Background: A high-risk pregnancy (HRP) is adversely affects the health of the mother, baby, or both.Most prenatal care research, rather than quality concepts, focuses on the adequacy of prenatal careand describes the emotional-psychological experiences of women with HRP. The main purpose of thisstudy was to explore the perspectives of healthcare professionals regarding the quality of prenatal carefor women with HRP.Methods: This qualitative study was conducted in three university hospitals and 12 comprehensivehealth centers in Ahvaz (Iran) from December 2020 to May 2021. In the present study, 10 midwives,2 executive directors, and 7 specialists were purposefully selected with maximum diversity. In-depthsemi-structured individual interviews were used to collect the data. Data were analyzed concurrentlyusing Elo and Kinga’s content analysis. The MAXQDA software version 10 was used for data analysis.Results: During data analysis, the 6 main categories “infrastructure for care provision”, “optimalclinical care”, “organizing referrals”, “preconception care”, “risk assessment”, and “family-centeredcare” and 14 subcategories were identified.Conclusion: Our findings showed that professional groups focused on the technical aspects of caring.The findings from this study highlight several conditions that can affect the quality of prenatal carefor women with HRP. Healthcare providers can use these factors to effectively manage HRPs, therebyimproving pregnancy outcomes among women with HRPs.

Keywords

• high-risk pregnancy
• qualitative research
• prenatal care
• perspective