Ulster University

Academic Institute

Marlene Sinclair

E006

The profile of pregnant women with complex health care needs and disabilities in Northern Ireland is not known. However, we know that in general, the number of pregnant women with a disability who access maternity services is increasing (McKay-Moffat, 2007; Porter et al, 2012). We also know that pregnancy outcomes have been shown to be poorer among women with disabilities and complex health care needs (McConnell et al, 2008; Llewellyn, 2012; Morton et al, 2013). Preston (2010) argues that there is a need to comprehensively understand more about how pregnancy and disabilities are experienced within existing maternity services, while the Strategy for Maternity Care in Northern Ireland 2012-2018 states that: ‘History has shown us that high-quality maternity care significantly contributes to the health and well-being of the woman and her baby. Yet, more can always be done to improve our services and to enhance the experience for all’. The Honest Broker provides a service which should enable anonymised aggregated data to be retrieved from the Northern Ireland Maternity System (Northern Ireland Regional Maternity system (NIMATS)). Secondary data analysis using retrospective quantitative data, to build a profile, will provide important intelligence for care planning and provision and for future service funding. It is envisaged that anonymous data regarding the medical and surgical history of all women giving birth in Northern Ireland over a one year period will be retrieved, along with self-declared medication usage (at the time of booking) and pregnancy, labour and birth outcomes. The Enhanced Prescribing Database (Enhanced Prescribing Database) will also provide a profile of the prescription only medicines used by pregnant women and the data will be linked to the Northern Ireland Regional Maternity system (NIMATS) data via the individual Health and Care numbers (H&C). Data will be analysed using SPSS (v 22)(IBM, 2013). An emerging profile of the categorisation and classification of pregnant women with complex healthcare needs, disabilities and medication usage of this population will be generated using descriptive and frequency based statistics.

The profile of pregnant women with complex health care needs and disabilities in Northern Ireland is not known. However, we know that in general, the number of pregnant women with a disability who access maternity services is increasing (McKay-Moffat, 2007; Porter et al, 2012). We also know that pregnancy outcomes have been shown to be poorer among women with disabilities and complex health care needs (McConnell et al, 2008; Llewellyn, 2012; Morton et al, 2013). Preston (2010) argues that there is a need to comprehensively understand more about how pregnancy and disabilities are experienced within existing maternity services, while the Strategy for Maternity Care in Northern Ireland 2012-2018 states that: ‘History has shown us that high-quality maternity care significantly contributes to the health and well-being of the woman and her baby. Yet, more can always be done to improve our services and to enhance the experience for all’.

30/07/2015

TRE