Abstract
Background
Heart disease, although relatively rare in pregnancy, is the leading cause of maternal death in the UK, with just over two deaths per 100,000 maternities reported. Most of these deaths occurred in women with undiagnosed heart disease. Health professionals need to be equipped with appropriate knowledge and skills to help identify women at possible risk and to manage appropriately or to refer for specialist assessment, care and management.
Aim
To identify the nature, content and accessibility of educational resources available to health professionals caring for pregnant women with heart disease.
Method
A scoping review was undertaken using Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) five-stage methodological framework. Key search terms used were ‘pregnancy’, ‘education’, ‘training’, ‘heart disease’, ‘midwife’, ‘doctor’ with their related terms and appropriate Boolean operators, in seven databases, along with grey literature, organisational websites and an online webbased search. The research question was: ‘What is the nature, content and accessibility of education and training resources for health professionals caring for pregnant women with heart disease?’
Findings
A small number of papers discussed educational needs, without providing content evaluation of training or educational resources. A web-based search for educational programmes revealed two resources which fitted the inclusion criteria. Both revealed three overarching common themes in the context of health professional education in the care of pregnant women with heart disease: preconception care, cardiovascular adaptation to pregnancy and antenatal, intranatal and postnatal management.
Conclusions and implications
The evidence indicates limited discussion in the literature regarding training for health professionals and limited accessibility for online learning as part of continuing professional education. In view of this limitation and the small but growing cohort of pregnant women with heart disease, all professional staff caring for pregnant women should have access to ongoing education and training in order to maintain skills to manage appropriately or to make timely
and appropriate referrals.
Heart disease, although relatively rare in pregnancy, is the leading cause of maternal death in the UK, with just over two deaths per 100,000 maternities reported. Most of these deaths occurred in women with undiagnosed heart disease. Health professionals need to be equipped with appropriate knowledge and skills to help identify women at possible risk and to manage appropriately or to refer for specialist assessment, care and management.
Aim
To identify the nature, content and accessibility of educational resources available to health professionals caring for pregnant women with heart disease.
Method
A scoping review was undertaken using Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) five-stage methodological framework. Key search terms used were ‘pregnancy’, ‘education’, ‘training’, ‘heart disease’, ‘midwife’, ‘doctor’ with their related terms and appropriate Boolean operators, in seven databases, along with grey literature, organisational websites and an online webbased search. The research question was: ‘What is the nature, content and accessibility of education and training resources for health professionals caring for pregnant women with heart disease?’
Findings
A small number of papers discussed educational needs, without providing content evaluation of training or educational resources. A web-based search for educational programmes revealed two resources which fitted the inclusion criteria. Both revealed three overarching common themes in the context of health professional education in the care of pregnant women with heart disease: preconception care, cardiovascular adaptation to pregnancy and antenatal, intranatal and postnatal management.
Conclusions and implications
The evidence indicates limited discussion in the literature regarding training for health professionals and limited accessibility for online learning as part of continuing professional education. In view of this limitation and the small but growing cohort of pregnant women with heart disease, all professional staff caring for pregnant women should have access to ongoing education and training in order to maintain skills to manage appropriately or to make timely
and appropriate referrals.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 55-61 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Evidence Based Midwifery |
| Volume | 16 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Publication status | Published - 01 Jun 2018 |