Table 1 Enabling factors to screening for infective maternal morbidity
Sub-theme | Quote | |
|---|---|---|
Awareness of infectious morbidity | Q1 | “A pregnant woman is prone to infection” FGD P9 Midwife |
Q2 | “Often we see infection after delivery” KII 12 Doctor | |
Awareness of the severity of the effect of infections on the health of the mother | Q3 | “In the periphery (community) they tend to detect infections really late, so by the time they get here …. the patient is very sick” FGD P5 Doctor |
Q4 | “So, by the time you realize they have infection the infection is already severe, and their life is at risk” KII 4 Nurse Midwife | |
Q5 | “Patients come back to hospital after they have recently been discharged home after delivery, some very sick, some even dead, and we believe most of them were discharged with an infection, but this was not recognised” KII 10 Doctor | |
Current practice to detect infectious morbidity | Q6 | “We check if there are any vaginal sores, we also check for syphilis and treat any infection in the mother and the child plus the father” FGD P4 Nurse Midwife |
Q7 | “When we triage, we check vital signs, in order to decide if the patient is an emergency patient, or a priority, or one that requires to be in the queue” KII10 Doctor | |
Q8 | “So normally in our department we do our own triage system, yes, that is to check which patients are in need of urgent care, yes we do that” KII 4 Nurse Midwife | |
Q9 | “We use the CHEWA early warning score in the high dependency unit here” FGD 2 Nurse | |
Q10 | “I have heard of the SOFA score for sepsis” KII 6 Doctor | |
The benefits of using an early warning score | Q11 | “The early warning tool for sure is very important because the more we are able to detect infection early the more we help save the lives of the mums and even the babies” FGD P8 Midwife |
Q12 | “I think that screening tools are important, as they help to detect the early signs of infection in a patient.” KII 2 Doctor | |
Q13 | “An early warning score will guide us to the management of the patient” FGD P8 Nurse Midwife | |
Q14 | “Earlier detection [of infection] equals to earlier treatment equals to earlier discharge and this prevents ‘congestions on the postnatal ward” KII 3 Doctor | |