Are you interested in applied social science and medical anthropology research, in the field of maternal and perinatal health and care? Do you recognize the value of interdisciplinary research and team work? Is it your ambition to become a top-tier researcher?

Project description

Improving care for pregnant women with hypertensive disorders: An ethnographic study of the use of shared-decision making tools in health facilities in Ghana

Maternal and perinatal mortality rates remain high in low and middle-income settings, where quality of maternity care has emerged as a bottleneck that hampers further gains. (Human) resource shortages are a key barrier to achieve quality maternity care. Risk-based medicine might address the resource problem and improve outcomes, by facilitating patient triage and clinical decisions leading to provision of the right care, to the right person, at the right moment. Whilst we can use epidemiology and other clinical sciences to develop risk prediction models, we do not yet know how exactly to implement these models. According to current WHO maternal care standards, quality care is not only based on the provision of evidence-based care, but also on the experience of care, which ought to respect women’s needs and principles of shared decision making. For practitioners, how to use risk prediction models and adhere to principles of respectful maternity care and shared-decision making requires further guidance. This can be challenging, especially in low and middle income settings where resources (e.g. time) are scant and practitioners and clients alike may subscribe less to the shared-decision making ideology. Moreover, shared-decision making in the context of hypertensive disorders is complicated by potential tensions between the health interest of the woman and baby. Survival of a woman may require termination of a pregnancy and delivery of a premature infant. Risk of death of the foetus or baby is real, and may have major social and economic implications. This raises questions about whether and how husbands or relatives need to be involved in the decision-making regarding clinical management of hypertensive disorders.

In this four year interdisciplinary, mixed-method project involving medical and social science we will (1) develop a clinical decision-making tool to improve clinical and respectful care, and facilitate shared decision making (2) implement the SPOT tool in hospitals in the Greater Accra Region and Eastern Region in Ghana (3) evaluate the impact of the SPOT tool. The PhD candidate will conduct ethnographic research in all three phases of the project.

More info here: https://www.sarponghammond.net/phd-candidate-in-social-sciences-in-health/