Exploring Potential Achievements and Barriers to Provide Homecare for Women with Preeclampsia: A Qualitative Study

Preeclampsia (PE) is one of the leading causes of mortality and complications during pregnancy. It seems that usual prenatal care is not enough for these patients. They require more assistance, support, and guidance from health professionals, and home care is an effective strategy in this regard. Also, Iran has no official or compiled program for home care in high-risk pregnancy. This study was designed to explore the potential achievements and barriers of home care for mothers with PE.

In this qualitative study with conventional content analysis, twenty-eight participants (mothers with PE, maternal health policy-makers, and health care providers) were selected through purposeful sampling with maximum variation. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews until saturation was achieved. Simultaneously, data analysis was performed using MXQDA software. Finally, the main categories were extracted.

Seven main categories were extracted. Three main categories for the potential achievement included “family involvement in maternal care”, “holistic maternal health promotion”, and “improving utility of services”. The other four categories emerged for barriers included: “more willingness to provide in-hospital medical care”, “clients’ concerns about cultural issues”, “providers` unwillingness to delivery home care”, and “insufficiency of infrastructures for home care”.

Paying attention to home care advantages, based on the socio-cultural context of the community, making effort to remove the barriers, and organizing home care infrastructures contribute to improvement in the quality of care in women with PE.