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BACKGROUND: Severe maternal morbidity has been shown to have specific, long-term effects on health and wellbeing, such as daily functioning and mental health. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to multidimensionally assess the long-term impact of maternal near-miss complications in Zanzibar. STUDY DESIGN: A prospective cohort study was conducted in Zanzibar's referral hospital. Women with maternal near-miss complications were matched with controls. At 3, 6, and 12 months after hospital discharge, history was taken, blood pressure and haemoglobin levels were measured, and multiple validated questionnaires (WHOQOL-BREF, WHODAS2.0, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, Harvard Trauma Questionnaire-16) were administered assessing experienced quality of life and disability, and screening for depression and posttraumatic stress disorder. RESULTS: We included 223 women after maternal near-miss complications and 213 women controls. There was a high prevalence of hypertension at 6 and 12 months in both groups and significantly higher after a near-miss. The proportion of women with low quality of life, disability, depression, or posttraumatic stress disorder was not significantly different between the 2 groups. A poor outcome for at least 1 of these 3 health domains was more prevalent after a near-miss complication. CONCLUSION: In Zanzibar, women after maternal near-miss complications report similar but slower recovery to control participants in the assessed dimensions. Adaptation of perceptions on and coping mechanisms with daily reality might partly explain this. Hypertension has a high prevalence after childbirth and should be treated adequately to prevent recurrent obstetrical and cardiovascular complications. Blood pressure follow-up for all women who delivered at Mnazi Mmoja Hospital seemed justified.

This study analyses the contribution of system-related factors to maternal mortality in the low-resource setting of Mnazi Mmoja Hospital in Zanzibar, Tanzania. It is a retrospective cohort study including all maternal deaths (MD, n = 139) and maternal near-misses (MNM, n = 122) in Mnazi Mmoja Hospital with sufficient documentation during 2015 to 2018 (MD) and 2017 to 2018 (MNM). The number of admissions and surgical interventions per health care provider on the day of admission and the number of times vital signs were monitored per day were compared between MNM and MD cases using logistic regression. The mean number of times vital signs were monitored per day was associated with reduced odds of mortality (aOR 0.75, 95% CI 0.64–0.89), after adjustment for confounding factors such as severity of illness. The numbers of admissions or surgical procedures per health care provider were not associated with mortality. Concluding, the degree of monitoring of patients with life-threatening complications of pregnancy or childbirth is associated with the risk of mortality independent of the degree of severity. Preventing maternal mortality requires going beyond availability of essential interventions to tackle system-related factors that have a direct impact on the capacity to provide comprehensive care.Impact StatementWhat is already known on this subject? Root cause analyses of maternal deaths have identified many system-related factors, such as availability of health care providers, adequate training, and motivation to sustain high intensity monitoring (Madzimbamuto et al. 2014; Mahmood et al. 2018). What do the results of this study add? This is the first study to attempt to quantify the contribution of these system-related factors by comparing cases of maternal death with cases of maternal near-miss. We show that the degree of monitoring of patients with life-threatening complications is associated with the odds of mortality independent of the degree of severity. Even t

Objective: To perform a retrospective external validation of miniPIERS in Zanzibar's referral hospital. Methods: From February to December 2017, data were collected retrospectively on all cases of hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) admitted to Mnazi Mmoja Hospital, Zanzibar, Tanzania. The primary outcome was the predictive performance of miniPIERS by examining measures of discrimination, calibration, and stratification accuracy. The secondary outcome was the applicability of miniPIERS within the referral hospital setting. Results: During this period, 2218 of 13 395 (21%) patients were identified with HDP, of whom 594 met the inclusion criteria. Sixty per cent of patients with adverse outcomes were excluded because they had experienced one of the adverse outcomes before admission. The discriminative ability of miniPIERS was inaccurate. It was not likely to aid risk stratification because of low sensitivity and low positive predictive value. The model showed fair discrimination in HDP before 34 weeks of gestation (area under the receiver operating characteristics curve 0.72, 95% confidence interval 0.63–0.82). Conclusions: The benefit of miniPIERS appeared to be limited, although clinical conditions make any validation challenging. Its application for risk stratification in preterm pregnancies should be further investigated.