An Implementation Study of Interventions to Promote Safe Motherhood in Jimma Zone Ethiopia

NCT ID: NCT03299491

Last Updated: 2020-11-05

Basic Information

• Recruitment Status: COMPLETED
• Clinical Phase: NA
• Total Enrollment: 3784 participants
• Study Classification: INTERVENTIONAL
• Study Start Date: 2016-10-15
• Study Completion Date: 2020-10-31

Brief Summary

Ethiopia has one of the highest rates of maternal mortality among all countries in Africa and indeed worldwide, with a maternal mortality ratio of 676 per 100,000 live births in 2011 (UNFPA, 2012). The majority of maternal deaths are preventable through early detection and management of complications, and access to adequate obstetric care (Say et al, 2014). However, in 2011 only 34% of women received antenatal care, 10% of births were delivered at a health facility and 7% of women received postnatal care during the first two days after delivery (Ethiopian DHS, 2011). Large distances and poor access to transport are two major obstacles that women face when trying to access services. In order to facilitate timely access to obstetric care, the Ethiopian Government introduced Maternity Waiting Areas (MWAs) at health centres to enable women to stay close to health facilities as they await delivery. Utilization of MWAs has generally been low due to the poor state of the homes and lack of adequate community support. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of two interventions to promote safe motherhood in increasing coverage of maternal health care services: (i) upgraded MWAs (ii) community and religious leader sensitization using information, education and communication (IEC) materials. The IEC materials are expected to increase leader awareness and support of antenatal care, facility deliveries, postnatal care and MWA use. Together with increased use of functional MWAs, improved support from leaders is expected to increase the proportion of facility-based births in interventions area. The interventions are also expected to positively impact antenatal care and postnatal care use in the study districts.

Detailed Description

A three-arm cluster trial design will be used to measure the impact of the intervention packages in three districts (Gomma, Seka Chekorsa, Kersa) in Jimma Zone, Ethiopia. Twenty-four clusters with 160 individuals each are required to detect a 17% change in the primary outcome (proportion of facility-based births) with 80% power,assuming a cluster autocorrelation of 0.8 and an intra-cluster correlation coefficient of 0.1. Primary health care units (PHCU) which consist of a health centre and several community-based health posts will serve as trial clusters. All PHCUs with maternity waiting areas (MWAs) constructed will be eligible for selection. Eligible women will be randomly selected from PHCU catchment areas stratified by MWA functionality and health centre basic emergency obstetric care (BEmOC) capacity. This is to ensure balanced distribution of poorly functioning MWAs and facilities with diminished BEmOC capacity between trial arms.

Cross-sectional household surveys will be conducted with eligible women to collect information on socio-demographics, knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding maternal health services, reproductive history and maternal health service utilization. Surveys will be administered by trained interviewers on tablet computers programmed using Open Data Kit at baseline prior to intervention roll out and at endline. Multilevel regression models will be used to quantify the effect of the intervention packages on outcomes of interest. Random effect terms for PHCUs will be included to account for the clustered nature of the data.

Conditions

Maternal Mortality; Maternal Morbidity

Study Design

• Allocation Method: RANDOMIZED
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Primary Study Purpose: HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
• Blinding Strategy: SINGLE

Study Groups

MWA+IEC intervention

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

MWA intervention

Intervention Type: OTHER

The MWA intervention will involve upgrading existing maternity waiting areas to ensure that essential supplies and services are available to create a comfortable environment for women to temporarily reside in and have easy access to skilled obstetric services.

IEC intervention

Intervention Type: OTHER

Community and religious leaders will each attend one-day workshops designed using participatory, adult learning methods to help participants better understand the importance of maternal health care services, identify barriers to accessing care and to strategize how to promote utilization of services. Half-day workshops will conducted in subsequent years to build on shared experiences.

Health extension workers will attend 3-day workshops to identify enablers and barriers to implementation of the safe motherhood components of the health extension program and strategize on how to engage community and religious leaders to support access to maternal health care services in their communities.

Half-day workshops will conducted in subsequent years for each of the participant groups to build on shared experiences.

IEC intervention

Group Type: EXPERIMENTAL

IEC intervention

Intervention Type: OTHER

Community and religious leaders will each attend one-day workshops designed using participatory, adult learning methods to help participants better understand the importance of maternal health care services, identify barriers to accessing care and to strategize how to promote utilization of services. Half-day workshops will conducted in subsequent years to build on shared experiences.

Health extension workers will attend 3-day workshops to identify enablers and barriers to implementation of the safe motherhood components of the health extension program and strategize on how to engage community and religious leaders to support access to maternal health care services in their communities.

Half-day workshops will conducted in subsequent years for each of the participant groups to build on shared experiences.

Control

Group Type: NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

MWA intervention

The MWA intervention will involve upgrading existing maternity waiting areas to ensure that essential supplies and services are available to create a comfortable environment for women to temporarily reside in and have easy access to skilled obstetric services.

Intervention Type: OTHER

IEC intervention

Community and religious leaders will each attend one-day workshops designed using participatory, adult learning methods to help participants better understand the importance of maternal health care services, identify barriers to accessing care and to strategize how to promote utilization of services. Half-day workshops will conducted in subsequent years to build on shared experiences.

Health extension workers will attend 3-day workshops to identify enablers and barriers to implementation of the safe motherhood components of the health extension program and strategize on how to engage community and religious leaders to support access to maternal health care services in their communities.

Half-day workshops will conducted in subsequent years for each of the participant groups to build on shared experiences.

Intervention Type: OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

Inclusion Criteria

• Women who were pregnant up to one year prior to the baseline survey and had a live birth, stillbirth or abortion (spontaneous or induced) and are residents in the study districts during the survey period are eligible to take part in the study.

Exclusion Criteria

• Women who are not able to provide informed consent due to severe illness or mental health conditions.

• Minimum Eligible Age: 15 Years
• Eligible Sex: FEMALE
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Sponsors

Jimma University

OTHER

Sponsor Role: collaborator

Ethiopian Ministry of Health, Jimma Zone

UNKNOWN

Sponsor Role: collaborator

University of Ottawa

OTHER

Sponsor Role: lead

Responsible Party

Manisha Kulkarni, PhD

Assistant Professor

Responsibility Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Principal Investigators

Manisha Kulkarni, PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University of Ottawa

Lakew Abebe, MPH

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

Jimma University

References

Kurji J, Gebretsadik LA, Wordofa MA, Morankar S, Bedru KH, Bulcha G, Bergen N, Kiros G, Asefa Y, Asfaw S, Mamo A, Endale E, Thavorn K, Labonte R, Taljaard M, Kulkarni MA. Effectiveness of upgraded maternity waiting homes and local leader training on improving institutional births: a cluster-randomized controlled trial in Jimma, Ethiopia. BMC Public Health. 2020 Oct 22;20(1):1593. doi: 10.1186/s12889-020-09692-4.

Reference Type: RESULT

PMID: 33092565 (View on PubMed)

Kurji J, Kulkarni MA, Gebretsadik LA, Wordofa MA, Morankar S, Bedru KH, Bulcha G, Thavorn K, Labonte R, Taljaard M. Effectiveness of upgraded maternity waiting homes and local leader training in improving institutional births among women in the Jimma zone, Ethiopia: study protocol for a cluster-randomized controlled trial. Trials. 2019 Dec 4;20(1):671. doi: 10.1186/s13063-019-3755-z.

Reference Type: DERIVED

PMID: 31801584 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

108028-002

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id