A retrospective review of facility-level obstetric complications and stillbirths in southern Haiti, 2013 – 2016

[ABSTRACT]. Objective. To assess the incidence of obstetric complications—eclampsia, dystocia, cesarean section, postpartum hemorrhage, and stillbirths—in hospitals in southern Haiti in 2013 – 2016 and to discuss implications for improvements to the surveillance of birth outcomes. Methods. This was a cross-sectional, retrospective study of data for 32 442 deliveries recorded in 2013 – 2016 by the Integrated Monitoring, Evaluation, and Surveillance System for facilities across three departments and one high-volume hospital in southern Haiti. Annual incidence rates of eclampsia, dystocia, cesarean section, postpartum hemorrhage, and stillbirths (both macerated and fresh) were calculated. Results. The incidence of eclampsia in the study sample was 2% – 3% and of dystocia approximately 5%, comparable to elsewhere in Haiti and other low-income countries. Cesarean delivery rates averaged about 15% annually. Postpartum hemorrhage rates were lower than published data from similar settings. Stillbirth rates ranged from 30 – 62 per 1 000 births at all facilities, higher than previously recorded by the country’s population surveys. The rates of macerated stillbirths were remarkably high, close to 50% of total stillbirths, indicating severe delays in seeking or receiving emergency obstetric care. Conclusions. This study provides important benchmarks for the current burden of preventable labor- and delivery-related complications in Haiti. Surveillance data suggest an urgent need for the management of hypertensive disorders during pregnancy, timely cesarean sections for dystocia, and management and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage in Haiti. Frequent data reviews may help address facility-specific bottlenecks.

[RESUMEN]. Objetivo. Evaluar la incidencia de las complicaciones obstétricas, como la eclampsia, la distocia, las cesáreas, la hemorragia posparto y la mortinatalidad, en los hospitales del sur de Haití en el período comprendido entre los años 2013 y 2016, y analizar las implicaciones para realizar mejoras en la vigilancia de los resultados perinatales. Métodos. Se trata de un estudio transversal y retrospectivo de los datos de 32 442 partos registrados en el período 2013-2016 mediante el sistema integrado de seguimiento, evaluación y vigilancia para establecimientos en tres departamentos y un hospital de gran actividad en el sur de Haití. Se calcularon las tasas de incidencia anuales de eclampsia, distocia, cesáreas y hemorragia posparto, así como de mortinatalidad (mortinatos macerados y frescos). Resultados. La incidencia de eclampsia en la muestra de estudio fue de entre 2% y 3% y de distocia, de aproximadamente 5%, equiparable a cualquier lugar en Haití y otros países de ingresos bajos. Las tasas promedio de parto por cesárea se aproximaron al 15% anual. Las tasas de hemorragia posparto fueron inferiores a los datos publicados sobre entornos similares. Las tasas de mortinatalidad comprendieron entre 30 y 62 por 1 000 nacimientos en la totalidad de establecimientos, un resultado mayor al que registrado con anterioridad en las encuestas de población del país. Las tasas de mortinatos macerados fueron notablemente elevadas, cerca de 50% de la mortinatalidad total, lo que pone de manifiesto retrasos graves a la hora de solicitar u obtener atención obstétrica de urgencia. Conclusiones. Este estudio ofrece puntos de referencia relevantes para la carga actual de complicaciones prevenibles del embarazo y el parto en Haití. Los datos de vigilancia indican que existe una urgente necesidad de tratamiento de los trastornos hipertensivos durante el embarazo, de cesáreas por distocia a tiempo, y de atención y tratamiento de la hemorragia posparto en Haití. Para abordar los obstáculos propios de los establecimientos puede ser útil realizar análisis frecuentes de los datos.

[RESUMO]. Objetivo. Avaliar a incidência de complicações obstétricas – eclâmpsias, distocias, cesarianas, hemorragias pós-parto e natimortos – em hospitais na região Sul do Haiti no período de 2013 a 2016 e discutir as implicações para melhorar a vigilância dos resultados dos partos. Métodos. Este foi um estudo transversal, retrospectivo, com dados de 32 442 partos registrados pelo Sistema Integrado de Monitoramento, Avaliação e Vigilância para estabelecimentos de saúde situados em três divisões político-administrativas (denominadas de departamentos) e um hospital de alto volume, todos situados na região Sul do Haiti, no período de 2013 a 2016. Foram calculadas as taxas anuais de incidência de eclâmpsias, distocias, cesarianas, hemorragias pós-parto e natimortos (macerados e frescos). Resultados. Na amostra do estudo, a taxa de incidência de eclâmpsias foi de 2 a 3%, e a de partos distócicos de aproximadamente 5%, comparáveis com as de outras localidades no Haiti e com outros países de baixa renda; as cesarianas apresentaram média anual de aproximadamente 15%; as taxas de hemorragia pós-parto foram menores que as publicadas sobre estabelecimentos similares. Em todos os estabelecimentos, as taxas de partos de natimortos variaram de 30 a 62 por 1 000 nascimentos, sendo mais altas que as anteriormente registradas pelos levantamentos populacionais do país. As taxas de natimortos macerados foram excepcionalmente altas, aproximadamente 50% do total de partos de natimortos, o que indica que há graves atrasos, seja na procura por atenção obstétrica de emergência ou no recebimento dessa atenção. Conclusões. Esse estudo fornece importantes parâmetros para determinar a atual carga de complicações passíveis de prevenção relacionadas com o trabalho de parto e com o parto propriamente dito no Haiti. Os dados de vigilância sugerem que, no Haiti, há uma necessidade urgente de manejar distúrbios hipertensivos durante a gestação, realizar cesarianas em tempo oportuno nos casos de distocias e manejar e tratar hemorragias pós-parto. Revisões frequentes dos dados podem ajudar a identificar os gargalos específicos de cada estabelecimento.

Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy and maternal and neonatal outcomes in Haiti: the importance of surveillance and data collection.

BACKGROUND: This study aims to determine reported prevalence of hypertensive disorders in pregnancy (HDP) and maternal and neonatal outcomes associated with these disorders among women delivering at selected hospitals across Haiti. METHODS: A retrospective review of 8822 singleton deliveries between January 2012 and December 2014 was conducted at four hospitals in separate Departments across Haiti. Researchers examined the proportion of women with reported HDP (hypertension, preeclampsia, eclampsia) and the association between women with HDP and three neonatal outcomes: low birth weight, preterm birth, and stillbirths; and two maternal outcomes: placental abruption and maternal death in Hôpital Albert Schweitzer (HAS). Odds ratios for associations between HDP and perinatal outcomes at HAS were assessed using logistic regression, adjusting for potential confounders. RESULTS: Of the 8822 singleton births included in the study, 510 (5.8%) had a reported HDP (including 285 (55.9%) preeclampsia, 119 (23.3%) eclampsia, and 106 (20.8%) hypertension). Prevalence of HDP among each hospital was: HAS (13.5%), Hôpital Immaculée Conception des Cayes (HIC) (3.2%), Fort Liberté (4.3%), and Hôpital Sacré Coeur de Milot (HSC) (3.0%). Among women at HAS with HDP, the adjusted odds of having a low birth weight baby was four times that of women without HDP (aOR 4.17, 95% CI 3.19-5.45), more than three times that for stillbirths (aOR 3.51, 95% CI 2.43-5.06), and five times as likely to result in maternal death (aOR 5.13, 95% CI 1.53-17.25). Among the three types of HDP, eclampsia was associated with the greatest odds of adverse events with five times the odds of having a low birth weight baby (aOR 5.00, 95% CI 2.84-8.79), six times the odds for stillbirths (aOR 6.34, 95% CI 3.40-11.82), and more than twelve times as likely to result in maternal death (aOR 12.70, 95% CI 2.33-69.31). CONCLUSIONS: A high prevalence of HDP was found among a cohort of Haitian mothers. HDP was associated with higher rates of adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes in HAS, which is comparable to studies of HDP conducted in high-income countries.

A retrospective review of facility-level obstetric complications and stillbirths in southern Haiti, 2013 - 2016.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the incidence of obstetric complications-eclampsia, dystocia, cesarean section, postpartum hemorrhage, and stillbirths-in hospitals in southern Haiti in 2013 - 2016 and to discuss implications for improvements to the surveillance of birth outcomes. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional, retrospective study of data for 32 442 deliveries recorded in 2013 - 2016 by the Integrated Monitoring, Evaluation, and Surveillance System for facilities across three departments and one high-volume hospital in southern Haiti. Annual incidence rates of eclampsia, dystocia, cesarean section, postpartum hemorrhage, and stillbirths (both macerated and fresh) were calculated. RESULTS: The incidence of eclampsia in the study sample was 2% - 3% and of dystocia approximately 5%, comparable to elsewhere in Haiti and other low-income countries. Cesarean delivery rates averaged about 15% annually. Postpartum hemorrhage rates were lower than published data from similar settings. Stillbirth rates ranged from 30 - 62 per 1 000 births at all facilities, higher than previously recorded by the country's population surveys. The rates of macerated stillbirths were remarkably high, close to 50% of total stillbirths, indicating severe delays in seeking or receiving emergency obstetric care. CONCLUSIONS: This study provides important benchmarks for the current burden of preventable labor- and delivery-related complications in Haiti. Surveillance data suggest an urgent need for the management of hypertensive disorders during pregnancy, timely cesarean sections for dystocia, and management and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage in Haiti. Frequent data reviews may help address facility-specific bottlenecks.

Health facility readiness and facility-based birth in Haiti: a maximum likelihood approach to linking household and facility data.

BACKGROUND: Haiti has one of the world's highest maternal mortality ratios. Comprehensive obstetric services could prevent many of these deaths, though most births in Haiti occur outside health facilities. Demand-side factors like a mother's socioeconomic status are understood to affect her access or choice to deliver in a health facility. However, analyses of the role of supply-side factors like health facility readiness have been constrained by limited data and methodological challenges. We sought to address these challenges and determine whether Haiti could increase rates of facility-based birth by improving facility readiness to provide delivery services. METHODS: Our task was to characterize facility delivery readiness and link it to nearby births. We used birth data from the 2012 Haiti DHS and facility data from the 2013 Haiti SPA. Our outcome of interest was facility-based birth. Our predictor of interest was delivery readiness at the DHS sampling cluster level. We derived a novel likelihood function that used Kernel Density Estimation to estimate cluster-level readiness alongside the coefficients of a logistic regression. RESULTS: We analyzed data from 389 facilities and 1,991 births. Rural facilities were less ready than urban facilities to provide delivery services. Women delivering in health facilities were younger, more educated, wealthier, less likely to live in rural areas, and had fewer previous children. Our model estimated that rural facilities (σ = 12.28, standard error [SE] = 0.16) spread their readiness over larger areas than urban facilities (σ = 7.14, SE = 0.016). Cluster-level readiness was strongly associated with facility-based birth (adjusted log-odds = 0.031; p = 0.005), as was socioeconomic status (adjusted log-odds = 0.78; p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Health system policymakers in Haiti could increase rates of facility-based birth by supporting targeted interventions to improve facility readiness to provide delivery-related services, alongside efforts to reduce poverty and increase educational attainment among women.

Attrition from antiretroviral treatment services among pregnant and non-pregnant patients following adoption of Option B+ in Haiti.

BACKGROUND: Access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) has expanded in Haiti because of the adoption of Option B+ and the revision of treatment guidelines. Retention in care and treatment varies greatly and few studies have examined retention rates, particularly among women enrolled in Option B+. OBJECTIVE: To assess attrition among pregnant and non-pregnant patients initiating ART following adoption of Option B+ in Haiti. METHODS: Longitudinal data of adult patients initiated on ART from October 2012 through August 2014 at 73 health facilities across Haiti were analyzed using a survival analysis framework to determine levels of attrition. The Kaplan-Meier method and Cox proportional hazards regression were used to examine risk factors associated with attrition. RESULTS: Among 17,059 patients who initiated ART, 7627 (44.7%) were non-pregnant women, 5899 (34.6%) were men, and 3533 (20.7%) were Option B+ clients. Attrition from the ART program was 36.7% at 12 months (95% CI: 35.9-37.5%). Option B+ patients had the highest level of attrition at 50.4% at 12 months (95% CI: 48.6-52.3%). While early HIV disease stage at ART initiation was protective among non-pregnant women and men, it was a strong risk factor among Option B+ clients. In adjusted analyses, key protective factors were older age (p < 0.0001), living near the health facility (p = 0.04), having another known HIV-positive household member (p < 0.0001), having greater body mass index (BMI) (p < 0.0001), pre-ART counseling (p < 0.0001), and Cotrimoxazole prophylaxis during baseline (p < 0.01). Higher attrition was associated with rapidly starting ART after enrollment (p < 0.0001), anemia (p < 0.0001), and regimen tenofovir+lamivudine+nevirapine (TDF+3TC+NVP) (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: ART attrition in Haiti is high among adults, especially among Option B+ patients. Identifying newly initiated patients most at risk for attrition and providing appropriate interventions could help reduce ART attrition.

Use of Rapid Ascertainment Process for Institutional Deaths (RAPID) to identify pregnancy-related deaths in tertiary-care obstetric hospitals in three departments in Haiti.

BACKGROUND: Accurate assessment of maternal deaths is difficult in countries lacking standardized data sources for their review. As a first step to investigate suspected maternal deaths, WHO suggests surveillance of "pregnancy-related deaths", defined as deaths of women while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of cause. Rapid Ascertainment Process for Institutional Deaths (RAPID), a surveillance tool, retrospectively identifies pregnancy-related deaths occurring in health facilities that may be missed by routine surveillance to assess gaps in reporting these deaths. METHODS: We used RAPID to review pregnancy-related deaths in six tertiary obstetric care facilities in three departments in Haiti. We reviewed registers and medical dossiers of deaths among women of reproductive age occurring in 2014 and 2015 from all wards, along with any additional available dossiers of deaths not appearing in registers, to capture pregnancy status, suspected cause of death, and timing of death in relation to the pregnancy. We used capture-recapture analyses to estimate the true number of in-hospital pregnancy-related deaths in these facilities. RESULTS: Among 373 deaths of women of reproductive age, we found 111 pregnancy-related deaths, 25.2% more than were reported through routine surveillance, and 22.5% of which were misclassified as non-pregnancy-related. Hemorrhage (27.0%) and hypertensive disorders (18.0%) were the most common categories of suspected causes of death, and deaths after termination of pregnancy were statistically significantly more common than deaths during pregnancy or delivery. Data were missing at multiple levels: 210 deaths had an undetermined pregnancy status, 48.7% of pregnancy-related deaths lacked specific information about timing of death in relation to the pregnancy, and capture-recapture analyses in three hospitals suggested that approximately one-quarter of pregnancy-related deaths were not captured by RAPID or routine surveillance. CONCLUSIONS: Across six tertiary obstetric care facilities in Haiti, RAPID identified unreported pregnancy-related deaths, and showed that missing data was a widespread problem. RAPID is a useful tool to more completely identify facility-based pregnancy-related deaths, but its repeated use would require a concomitant effort to systematically improve documentation of clinical findings in medical records. Limitations of RAPID demonstrate the need to use it alongside other tools to more accurately measure and address maternal mortality.

ART attrition and risk factors among Option B+ patients in Haiti: A retrospective cohort study.

OBJECTIVES: In October 2012, the Haitian Ministry of Health endorsed the "Option B+" strategy to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and achieve HIV epidemic control. The objective of this paper is to assess and identify risk factors for attrition from the national ART program among Option B+ patients in the 12 months after ART initiation. DESIGN: This retrospective cohort study included patients newly initiating ART from October 2012-August 2013 at 68 ART sites covering 45% of all newly enrolled ART patients in all regions of Haiti. METHODS: With data from electronic medical records, we carried out descriptive analysis of sociodemographic, clinical, and pregnancy-related correlates of ART attrition, and used a modified Poisson regression approach to estimate relative risks in a multivariable model. RESULTS: There were 2,166 Option B+ patients who initiated ART, of whom 1,023 were not retained by 12 months (47.2%). One quarter (25.3%) dropped out within 3 months of ART initiation. Protective factors included older age, more advanced HIV disease progression, and any adherence counseling prior to ART initiation, while risk factors included starting ART late in gestation, starting ART within 7 days of HIV testing, and using an atypical ART regimen. DISCUSSION: Our study demonstrates early ART attrition among Option B+ patients and contributes evidence on the characteristics of women who are most at risk of attrition in Haiti. Our findings highlight the importance of targeted strategies to support retention among Option B+ patients.

Quality and uptake of antenatal and postnatal care in Haiti.

BACKGROUND: Despite improvement, maternal mortality in Haiti remains high at 359/100,000 live births. Improving access to high quality antenatal and postnatal care has been shown to reduce maternal mortality and improve newborn outcomes. Little is known regarding the quality and uptake of antenatal and postnatal care among Haitian women. METHODS: Exit interviews were conducted with all pregnant and postpartum women seeking care from large health facilities (n = 10) in the Nord and Nord-Est department and communes of St. Marc, Verrettes, and Petite Rivière in Haiti over the study period (March-April 2015; 3-4 days/facility). Standard questions related to demographics, previous pregnancies, current pregnancy, and services/satisfaction during the visit were asked. Total number of antenatal visits were abstracted from charts of recently delivered women (n = 1141). Provider knowledge assessments were completed by antenatal and postnatal care providers (n = 39). Frequencies were calculated for descriptive variables and multivariable logistic regression was used to explore predictors of receiving 5 out of 10 counseling messages among pregnant women. RESULTS: Among 894 pregnant women seeking antenatal care, most reported receiving standard clinical service components during their visit (97% were weighed, 80% had fetal heart tones checked), however fewer reported receiving recommended counseling messages (44% counselled on danger signs, 33% on postpartum family planning). Far fewer women were seeking postnatal care (n = 63) and similar service patterns were reported. Forty-three percent of pregnant women report receiving at least 5 out of 10 counseling messages. Pregnant women on a repeat visit and women with greater educational attainment had greater odds of reporting having received 5 out of 10 counseling messages (2nd visit: adjusted odds ratio [aOR] =1.70, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.09-2.66; 5+ visit: aOR = 5.44, 95% CI: 2.91-10.16; elementary school certificate: aOR = 2.06, 95% CI: 1.17-3.63; finished secondary school or more aOR = 1.97, 95% CI = 1.05-3.02). Chart reviews indicate 27% of women completed a single antenatal visit and 36% completed the recommended 4 visits. CONCLUSIONS: Antenatal and postnatal care uptake in Haiti is sub-optimal. Despite frequent reports of provision of standard service components, counseling messages are low. Consistent provision of standardized counseling messages with regular provider trainings is recommended to improve quality and uptake of care in Haiti.