Development of two instruments for assessing maternity health needs: protocol of a clinimetric study

Carmen Paz-Pascual,Isabel Artieta-Pinedo,Maite Espinosa,Paola Bully

doi:10.1186/s12884-020-03377-x

Abstract

BackgroundThere is an unquestionable need to adapt health care to the needs of each woman, to foster her self-confidence and provide her with the autonomy to manage her own maternity. This involves empowering her to choose and face her model of childbirth and childcare responsibly. The range of self-management health needs tests offered by the scientific community at this stage of life is practically non-existent. In this project, we intend to develop and evaluate the validity, reliability and ease of use of two self-administered analysis instruments for: 1.- Needs of women preparing for childbirth and 2.- Identification of alarm symptoms in the puerperium.MethodsThis is a descriptive study of the clinimetric characteristics and usability of two developed self-applied digital instruments for measuring needs in childbirth and postpartum based on the recommendations made in the consensus-based standards for the selection of health measurement instruments (COSMIN) and by the International Test Commission (ITC). The study consists of two phases: 1 - Evaluation of the clinimetric properties of the two instruments, which were developed and then altered, based on their comprehensibility and global usability estimated from a pilot study and 2 - Pre-implementation study.DiscussionThe final product will be two valid, reliable, usable instruments for self-assessment of health needs that are highly acceptable to young couples and the professionals who serve them. They will be a valuable resource for meeting the needs of the population more efficiently and guiding decision-making, and they will contribute to the greater sustainability of the health system.

Highlights

There is an unquestionable need to adapt health care to the needs of each woman, to foster her self-confidence and provide her with the autonomy to manage her own maternity
Each analyst will subsequently build up a conceptual structure that is pooled in order to contrast it later with the texts and lead to final results. This project constitutes an essential step in the development of the “modeling, implementation and evaluation of new Maternal Education (ME) focused on the needs of women” in the multi-method line of other work [26], which will allow us to offer an effective response to real demands of women and their families in the current sociocultural context
These two measurement instruments will be integrated within the framework of this new ME, providing support at the two critical moments of childbirth and postpartum

Summary

Introduction

There is an unquestionable need to adapt health care to the needs of each woman, to foster her self-confidence and provide her with the autonomy to manage her own maternity. We know that they systematically turn to the internet to search for information and advice about their pregnancy, regardless of their social and cultural level [6,7,8], and that it may even be their main source of information, as in the case of highly qualified women professionals or immigrants, for whom attendance at ME sessions is not always feasible [9, 10] Given this reality, the use of e-health in ME as a support tool for health decision-making can be useful for women, professionals and the health system [11, 12], as long as it is developed using an appropriate evidence-based methodology. The range of tools currently provided by the internet which respond to these quality requirements is practically non-existent [14]

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