Measuring Maternal Morbidity in Routinely Collected Health Data

Development and Validation of a Maternal Morbidity Outcome Indicator

Bibliographic Data

ID9103573
AuthorsChristine L Roberts (0000-0002-9808-7647, Royal North Shore Hospital, corresponding author), Carolyn A Cameron (The University of Sydney, corresponding author), Jane C Bell (0000-0001-6940-6517, The University of Sydney, corresponding author), Charles S Algert (0000-0003-2525-9361, The University of Sydney, corresponding author), Jonathan Morris (0000-0002-4307-5948, Royal North Shore Hospital), Jonathan M Morris (0000-0003-3368-4632)
Year2008
Volume46
Issue8
Pages786-794
Publication date2008-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedical Care (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0025-7079 • E-ISSN: 1537-1948
PublisherOvid Technologies (Wolters Kluwer Health) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1097/mlr.0b013e318178eae4
PMID18665058
OpenAlexW2037014781
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited31

BACKGROUND: As maternal deaths become rare in many countries, severe maternal morbidity has been suggested as a better indicator of quality of care. OBJECTIVE: To develop and validate an indicator for measuring major maternal morbidity in routinely collected population health datasets (PHDS). METHODS: First, diagnoses and procedures that might indicate major maternal morbidity were compiled and used to sample possible cases in PHDS; second, a validation study of indicated cases was undertaken by review of birth admission medical records using a nested case-control study approach with 400 possible cases and 800 controls; finally "true" morbidity from the validation study was used to define a maternal morbidity outcome indicator (MMOI) with a high positive predictive value (PPV). Sensitivity, specificity, PPV, negative predictive value (NPV), and exact 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) were weighted by the sampling probabilities. RESULTS: There were 1184 records available for review. Of 393 possible cases only 188 were confirmed as suffering major morbidity (weighted PPV 47.3%, sensitivity 72.9%) and of the 791 initial noncases, 787 were confirmed as noncases (weighted NPV 99.5%, specificity 98.5%). Revision of the initial indicator with exclusion of noncontributing International Classification of Disease (ICD) codes provided a MMOI with population-weighted rate of 1.5%, PPV 94.6% (95% CI: 72.3-99.9), sensitivity 78.4% (95% CI: 55.2-93.1), specificity 99.9% (95% CI: 99.5-99.9), and 99.5% agreement with "true" morbidity (kappa 0.86). CONCLUSIONS: PHDS can be used reliably to identify women who suffer a major adverse outcome during the birth admission and have potential for monitoring the quality of obstetric care in a uniform and cost-effective way

Confidence interval · Environmental health · Medical diagnosis · Medical record · Obstetrics · Population · Positive predicative value · Predictive value · Global Maternal and Child Health · Internal Medicine · Maternal and fetal healthcare · Maternal and Perinatal Health Interventions · Medicine · Pediatrics