Abstract
Up to 80% of pregnant women experience nausea and vomiting during pregnancy (NVP). NVP has been shown to impact pregnant women’s life negatively. Early recognition and sufficient management are recommended to prevent development of severe symptoms. Patient involvement has shown potential in health management. However, unclear and incomplete information are two known barriers to patient involvement. Therefore, this thesis aims to examine how a mobile application and a pharmacist consultation can provide health information and involve pregnant women in their NVP management. The results showed that decision support tools available for pregnant women were useful and had potential in maternal care, but studies on decision support tools used during pregnancy are still scarce. The use of the mobile application to track NVP severity with tailored information showed no effect on pregnant women’s NVP severity, quality of life, or decisional conflict. There was not detected any impact of a pharmacist consultation on medication use compared to standard care either. More work is needed to understand how pregnant women use mobile applications and how they utilize them in communication with health care providers. It is also necessary to investigate how pharmacists can contribute to the standard maternal care, especially among women with low sociodemographic status.
List of papers
Paper I. Elin Ngo, Maria Bich-Thuy Truong, Hedvig Nordeng. Use of Decision Support Tools to Empower Pregnant Women: Systematic Review. J Med Internet Res. 2020;22(9):e19436. DOI: 10.2196/19436. The article is included in the thesis. Also available at: https://doi.org/10.2196/19436 |
Paper II. Elin Ngo, Maria Bich-Thuy Truong, David Wright, Hedvig Nordeng. Impact of a Mobile Application for Tracking Nausea and Vomiting During Pregnancy (NVP) on NVP Symptoms, Quality of Life, and Decisional Conflict Regarding NVP Treatments: MinSafeStart Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2022;10(7):e36226. DOI: 10.2196/36226. The article is included in the thesis. Also available at: https://doi.org/10.2196/36226 |
Paper III. Elin Ngo, Maria Bich-Thuy Truong, Hedvig Nordeng. Impact of a primary care pharmacist consultation on pregnant women’s medication use: The SafeStart intervention study linked to a national prescription database. Int J Clin Pharm (2023). DOI: 10.1007/s11096-023-01577-x. The article is included in the thesis. Also available at: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11096-023-01577-x |