Quality Improvement Interventions for Nutritional Assessment among Pregnant Mothers in Northeastern Uganda
Jonathan Izudi1,2, Calvin Epidu1,2, Andrew Katawera1,2
1Baylor College of Medicine, Children's Foundation-Uganda, Box 72052, Kampala, Uganda.
Introduction:
Assessment of pregnant mothers for nutritional status is a neglected intervention. In Kaabong Hospital, nutritional status of pregnant mothers was not assessed during antenatal care (ANC) visits. A quality improvement (QI) project was initiated to increase nutritional assessment using midupper arm circumference (MUAC) among pregnant mothers during ANC visits from 0 to 90% between April and September 2015.
Method:
Baylor-Uganda formed ANC Work Improvement Team (WIT) that reviewed ANC register, identified gaps in quality of care, analyzed root causes using cause-effect diagram, developed solutions, and tested and implemented the solution using Plan-Do-Study-Act cycles. Planned and tested changes included the provision of anthropometric tools, integrated ANC register, and data use.
Result:
In April 2015 (baseline), none (0/235) of the pregnant women were assessed for nutritional status using MUAC. Following QI interventions, nutritional assessment improved to 79% (200/252) in May 2015 and to 100% (241/241) in June 2015. The 100% performance was sustained until August 2016. Overall, 39 cases of malnutrition-1 (2.6%) severe (MUAC < 19.0 cm) and 38 (97.4%) moderate acute malnutrition (MUAC 19-22.0 cm)-were identified and linked to nutritional rehabilitation program.
Conclusion:
QI interventions are critical in achieving high rates of nutritional status assessment and identifying malnourished pregnant women during ANC visits.
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