Listening to the community: Using formative research to strengthen maternity waiting homes in Zambia.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The WHO recommends maternity waiting homes (MWH) as one intervention to improve maternal and newborn health. However, persistent structural, cultural and financial barriers in their design and implementation have resulted in mixed success in both their uptake and utilization. Guidance is needed on how to design a MWH intervention that is acceptable and sustainable. Using formative research and guided by a sustainability framework for health programs, we systematically collected data from key stakeholders and potential users in order to design a MWH intervention in Zambia that could overcome multi-dimensional barriers to accessing facility delivery, be acceptable to the community and be financially and operationally sustainable.

Methods and findings

We used a concu

SUBMITTER: Scott NA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5854412 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature