JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

This is an exploratory sequential design mixed methods research that aims to develop a psychosocial support model for caring for women who experience fetal death and abnormality in a teaching hospital in Ghana. Health care delivery for such women is inadequate in a country such as Ghana because there is paucity on research of women's experiences and a lack of a model that guides delivery of care that will meet the needs of the women. Usually, the approach to care for the women is also positivist such that it does not consider the situation of the women, culture, and their setting. This work therefore will factor in the social context of which these women are in and generate evidence that will help in producing effective care. Psychosocial support is a key component in reducing anxiety and depression with such experience and there is confirmed evidence that more work is needed to develop a framework of care for health workers to use. Grounded theory will be used to collect qualitative data on the women, health workers and community and this will help in developing the model. Hypotheses will be made based on findings from grounded theory. The quantitative method that will be employed is cross-sectional. Themes from the qualitative data will be used to develop and test quantitative instrument. Quantitative data will be collected from women, healthcare workers and community who were not part of the qualitative data.Statistical analysis would be performed.