Development, women-centricity and psychometric properties of maternity patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs): A systematic review

Abstract

BackgroundMeasuring maternity care outcomes based on what women value is critical to promoting woman-centred maternity care. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are instruments that enable service users to assess healthcare service and system performance. AimTo identify and critically appraise the risk of bias, woman-centricity (content validity) and psychometric properties of maternity PROMs published in the scientific literature. MethodsMEDLINE, CINAHL Plus, PsycINFO and Embase were systematically searched for relevant records between 01/01/2010 and 07/10/2021. Included articles underwent risk of bias, content validity and psychometric properties assessments in line with COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement INstruments (COSMIN) guidance. PROM results were summarised according to language subgroups and an overall recommendation for use was determined. FindingsForty-four studies reported on the development and psychometric evaluation of 9 maternity PROMs, grouped into 32 language subgroups. Risk of bias assessments for the PROM development and content validity showed inadequate or doubtful methodological quality. Internal consistency reliability, hypothesis testing (for construct validity), structural validity and test-retest reliability varied markedly in sufficiency and evidence quality. No PROMs received a level ‘A’ recommendation, required for real-world use. ConclusionMaternity PROMs identified in this systematic review had poor quality evidence for their measurement properties and lacked sufficient content validity, indicating a lack of woman-centricity in instrument development. Future research should prioritise women’s voices in deciding what is relevant, comprehensive and comprehensible to measure, as this will impact overall validity and reliability and facilitate real-world use.