TY - JOUR AU - Khader, Yousef AU - Alyahya, Mohammad AU - Batieha, Anwar PY - 2019 DA - 2019/03/06 TI - Barriers to Implementation of Perinatal Death Audit in Maternity and Pediatric Hospitals in Jordan: Cross-Sectional Study JO - JMIR Public Health Surveill SP - e11653 VL - 5 IS - 1 KW - perinatal death KW - quality of health care KW - cause of death KW - Jordan AB - Background: Perinatal death audit is a feasible and cost-effective quality improvement tool that helps to improve the quality of health care and reduce perinatal deaths. Perinatal death audit is not implemented in almost all hospitals in Jordan. Objective: This study aimed to assess health professionals’ attitude toward perinatal death auditing and determine the main barriers for effective implementation of perinatal death auditing as perceived by health professionals in Jordanian hospitals. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among health professionals in 4 hospitals in Jordan. All physicians (pediatricians and obstetricians) and nurses working in these hospitals were invited to participate in the study. The study questionnaire assessed the attitude of health professionals toward perinatal death audit and assessed barriers for implementation of perinatal death audit in their hospitals. Results: This study included a total of 84 physicians and 218 nurses working in the 4 selected maternity hospitals. Only 35% (29/84) of physicians and 36.2% (79/218) of nurses reported that perinatal death audit would help to improve the quality of prenatal health care services to a great or very great extent. Lack of time was the first-mentioned barrier for implementing perinatal death audit by both physicians (35/84, 42%) and nurses (80/218, 36.7%). Almost the same proportions of health professionals reported inadequate patient information being documented in hospital records as a barrier. Lack of a health information system was the third-mentioned barrier by health professionals. Fear of having conflicts with the family of the dead baby was reported by almost one-third of physicians and nurses. Only 28% (23/83) of physicians and 16.9% (36/213) of nurses reported that they would like to be involved in perinatal death audit in their health facilities. Conclusions: Health professionals in Jordan had poor attitude toward perinatal death audit. The main barriers for implementing perinatal death audit in Jordanian hospitals were lack of time, inadequate patient information being documented in hospital records, and lack of health information systems. SN - 2369-2960 UR - http://publichealth.jmir.org/2019/1/e11653/ UR - https://doi.org/10.2196/11653 UR - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30839277 DO - 10.2196/11653 ID - info:doi/10.2196/11653 ER -