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DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-0528.2012.03294.x
www.bjog.org
Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA and
Department of Reproductive Health and Research, World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland
Tuncalp, Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Correspondence: Dr O
Health. 615 N Wolfe St MD 21205, Baltimore, USA. Email: otuncalp@jhsph.edu
b
miss.
Search strategy Following a pre-defined protocol, our review
abstract, and 153 articles were retrieved for full text evaluation.
There were no language restrictions.
Data collection and analysis Data extraction was performed using
Prevalence rates varied between 0.6 and 14.98% for diseasespecific criteria, between 0.04 and 4.54% for management-based
criteria and between 0.14 and 0.92% for organ-based dysfunction
based on Mantel criteria. The rates are higher in low-income and
middle-income countries of Asia and Africa. Based on metaanalysis, the estimate of near miss was 0.42% (95% CI 0.40
0.44%) for the Mantel (organ dysfunction) criteria and 0.039%
(95% CI 0.0370.042%) for emergency hysterectomy. Our metaregression results indicate that emergency hysterectomy rates have
been increasing by about 8% per year.
Authors conclusions There is growing interest in the application
of the maternal near-miss concept as an adjunct to maternal
mortality. However, in the literature published before 2011 there
was still important variation in the criteria used to identify
maternal near-miss cases. The World Health Organization recently
published criteria based on markers of management and of
clinical and organ dysfunction which would enable systematic data
collection on near miss and development of summary estimates.
Comparing the rates over time and across regions, it is clear that
different approaches are needed to lower the rates of near miss
and that interventions must be developed with the local context in
mind.
Keywords Global, maternal morbidity, near miss, review.
, Hindin MJ, Souza JP, Chou D, Say L. The prevalence of maternal near miss: a systematic review. BJOG 2012;119:
Please cite this paper as: Tuncalp O
653661.
Introduction
Progress in the reduction of maternal mortality has been
slow. Over 1000 women still die from pregnancy-related
causes every day around the world and the vast majority of
these deaths occur in developing countries.1 Low-income
countries are heavily affected by the burden of maternal
The World Health Organization retains copyright and all other rights in
the manuscript of this article as submitted for publication.
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Tuncalp et al.
hand, such a policy may lead to overloading of health services, which are already insufficient in many of these settings, thereby adversely affecting the quality of care. In this
context, quality of care has been identified as a central element in the United Nations Global Strategy for Women
and Children Health.3
Confidential enquiries into maternal deaths have been
in use for many years in the identification of quality of
care and health systems issues.4 However, in low mortality
settings or at the health service level, the number of maternal deaths is generally insufficient or not representative
enough to allow reliable policy guidance. In the last
20 years, the concept of maternal near miss has been
explored in maternal health as an adjunct to maternal-death
confidential enquiries. Among other positive characteristics,
near-miss cases occur more frequently than maternal deaths
and can directly inform on problems and obstacles that had
to be overcome during the process of health care, providing
more robust conclusions and rapid reporting on maternal
care issues.5,6 Hence, the identification of cases of severe
maternal morbidity has emerged as a promising complementary or alternative strategy to reduce maternal mortality. In particular, near misses have been viewed as a useful
outcome measure for the evaluation and improvement of
maternal health services in developing countries.4
In 2003/04, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted a systematic review on the prevalence of severe maternal morbidity and maternal near-miss cases. The substantial
heterogeneity observed in the pre-2004 literature led WHO
to establish a technical working group comprising obstetricians, midwives, epidemiologists and public healthcare professionals to develop a standard definition and uniform
identification criteria for maternal near-miss cases.7 In April
2009, a paper was published by the WHO working group
defining maternal near miss morbidity as a woman who
nearly died but survived a complication that occurred during
pregnancy, childbirth or within 42 days of termination of
pregnancy. With a view to achieving a reasonable balance
between the burden of data collection and useful information, the WHO working group targeted the identification of
only very severe casesi.e. primarily those presenting with
features of organ dysfunction.7 The near-miss identification
criteria developed by the technical working group have been
tested and validated as being able to provide robust and reliable data. Detailed information about the near-miss concept
and its development is published elsewhere (Souza JP et al.,
manuscript in preparation).7,8
Methods
A WHO systematic review published in 2004, spanned the
literature on severe maternal morbidity and maternal near
miss from 1997 to 2004.9 The current review provides an
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3943
Title/Abstract
3790 articles excluded
based on the
inclusion criteria
153
Full-text
3 articles included
after complementary
search
74 articles excluded
82
Inclusion
Results
Nearly 4000 articles were initially screened by title and
abstract, and 153 articles were retrieved for full text evaluation. Data have been extracted from 82 articles (Figure 1).
A total of 82 studies from 46 countries were included
in this review. Studies were mainly retrospective crosssectional and except for one study in Brazil,10 all of the
studies used data from facilities, mainly tertiary-care hospitals. A majority of the studies included describe the characteristics of the setting and participants as well as reporting
definitions and procedures of identification of the cases.
More detailed information on each study is presented in
the Table S1. To validate our current strategy, we tested it
on the articles included in the 2004 review and identified
27 out of the 30 articles included in the previous review
strategy. The three articles not found initially were identified after a complementary reference lists search.
Except for the studies reporting on emergency hysterectomies and intensive-care unit (ICU) admissions, a majority of the studies defined near miss as a woman who
almost died but survived through chance or as a result of
good care received. Overall, there were three major
approaches to the identification: (1) disease-specific criteria
(i.e. severe pre-eclampsia, severe postpartum haemorrhage),
(2) management-based criteria (i.e. admission to ICU, need
for a blood transfusion), or (3) organ system dysfunctionbased criteria. The majority used management-based criteria
including 33 studies that used emergency hysterectomies,
and 18 that used ICU admissions to define near miss.
Seven studies used disease-specific criteria, nine of the articles used organ system dysfunction as the criteria for near
miss and 14 used a combination of disease, organ and
management-based criteria.
Identification criteria
Disease-specific
Management-specific
Emergency hysterectomy
ICU sdmission
Organ dysfunction
Mantel or Modified Mantel
criteria
Other
Mixed criteria
Disease/Organ/Management
Disease/Management
Region***
Africa
Asia
Latin America and Caribbean
Europe
North America
Oceania (Australia)
Range of near
misses (%)
0.614.98
0.040.26
0.044.54 (15.8)*
0.142.3
0.140.92 (17.8)**
No. of
studies (n = 81)
7
34
18
8
2.3
0.044.43
0.093.42
7
7
0.0514.98
0.025.07 (17.8)**
0.344.93 (15.8)*
0.040.79
0.071.38
1.25
14
31
9
18
10
1
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Tuncalp et al.
certain management markers such as intensive-care admission, emergency hysterectomy to identify near-miss cases.18
This criterion is arguably the most stable compared with
others in this review. Depending on the level of the facility
and resources available, some studies used a modified version of these criteria.1923 One study by Adisasmita et al.19
in Indonesia reported a near-miss rate of 17.8%much
higher than the other studies in this category and considered the second outlier in this review. This study included
a large number of early pregnancy losses in the numerator
and included a number of clinical diagnoses (eclampsia,
uterine rupture and ectopic pregnancy) in their near-miss
criteria. Using deliveries as the denominator and including
these clinical diagnoses may have inflated the near-miss
rate. However, even if the obstetric-related admissions were
used as the denominator and only near miss cases with
organ dysfunction are included, the near miss rate is
11.3%still very high compared with all the other studies.
The most commonly used criterion was emergency hysterectomies in all regions except North America, and Latin
America and the Caribbean (LAC) (6/14 in Africa, 16/31 in
Asia, 8/17 in Europe, 3/10 in North America and Australia
and 1/11 in LAC). The second most common criterion
across regions was ICU admission, for all regions except
Africa. In North America, several of the studies identified
near misses using criteria combining disease, organ and
management markers, using International Classification of
Disease (ICD) codes and national and regional databases.
Depending on the resources of a facility or a country overall, the criteria used for identification of near misses vary.
For example, in high-income countries where facility deliveries and systematic, national level data are the norm, more
sensitive markers have been used to identify the near-miss
cases, whereas in resource-poor settings, management-based
criteria are more commonly used.
In low and middle-income countries, approximately 1%
of the women experienced a near-miss event before, during
or after delivery as identified by organ dysfunction criteria.
It was around 0.25% in higher-income countries. Management-specific criteria using ICU admissions and emergency
hysterectomies were under 1% across all regions, except the
two studies from the LAC region.17,25 Using mixed criteria
combining different markers, the rate ranges between 2.10
and 4.43% in low-income and middle-income countries
and 0.09 and 1.38% in higher-income countries.
Table 2. Near miss rates in each region by different identification criteria (# signifies the number of studies)
Identification criteria
Disease-specific
Management-specific
Emergency hysterectomy
ICU admission
Organ dysfunction
Mantel or Modified Mantel
Other
Mixed Criteria
Disease/Management
Disease/Organ/Management
Total
Africa
Asia
% Near miss
LAC
% Near miss
0.614.98
3.215.07
0.050.41
0.24
6
1
0.020.49
0.120.90
16
9
0.410.84
0.9 (17.8)**
2.3
3.15
0.0514.98
14
3.42
0.025.07
2
1
1
31
% Near miss
Europe
% Near miss
N. America and
Australia
n
% Near miss
4.93
0.79
0.87
0.344.54 (15.8)*
1
3
0.040.20
0.040.73
8
4
0.070.16
0.291.33
3
2
0.63
0.140.35
2
3
11
0.090.72
0.040.79
17
2.103.04
2.124.43
0.344.92
1.25
0.271.38
0.071.38
1
4
10
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2004 Review
(N = 30)
0.88.23
0.010.21 (2.99)****
0.081.02
0.381.09 (10.61)***
1.34
2011 Review
2004 Review
0.0514.98
0.025.07 (17.8)**
0.344.93 (15.8)*
0.0810.61
0.014.37
0.140.24
0.040.79
0.071.38
0.041.20
0.080.27
1.25
Discussion
We have included 82 studies in this systematic review. All
of the included studies have used a variety of near-miss criteria ranging from disease-specific to organ dysfunction
and a mix of different systems. The near-miss rates have
not significantly changed between the review in 2004 and
the current 2011 review, although the ranges are wider for
each category in the current review. In the current study,
disease-specific criteria produced higher rates than both
management-specific and organ dysfunction criteria. Under
the management-based criteria, studies using ICU admission produced larger variation than emergency hysterectomy studies.
Studies using management-based criteria were less likely
to specifically include the discussion on maternal near miss;
rather, they focused on emergency obstetric care and the
case series in their facilities. We should underline the fact
that the rates produced by these individual studies do not
include all the near-miss cases in a facility. Admission to
ICU relies on the availability of physical and human
resources as well as the criteria for admission used in
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Figure 2. Meta-analysis among studies using Mantel-based organ dysfunction criteria (n = 11).
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reach out to the authors for further information and clarification. Second, this review is very timely as we move
towards standardised criteria, as it summarises the current
trends in global near-miss rates. Since the 2004 review, the
number of studies examining maternal near miss almost
tripled, underlining the growing emphasis on the issue
globally. Next, we used the previous systematic review data
both to assess our search criteria and to assess changes over
time. Finally, the study adds to the previous systematic
review by including meta-analysis to get overall near-miss
prevalence rates for two of the criteria.
It is our hope that the recent WHO criteria for identifying maternal near-miss cases will stimulate researchers and
clinicians to carry out near-miss assessments around the
world using the same criteria. We are aware of a number
of ongoing studies, including the large multi-country study
that WHO is implementing in 29 countries.28 To use nearmiss cases as a way to improve quality of care in the facilities, WHO has developed a systematised approach to
implement near-miss criterion-based clinical audits.29 For
these types of audits a set of evidence-based, explicit, measurable criteria for case management are agreed that can
then be used to monitor practice and determine if standards of care have been met, by reviewing case notes.30 The
expected results include, among others, understanding local
patterns of maternal mortality and morbidity, strengths
and weaknesses in the referral system, and the use of
clinical and other healthcare interventions. In addition,
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Figure 3. Meta-analysis among studies using emergency hysterectomya management based criteria (N = 40).
implementing a surveillance strategy on women with lifethreatening conditions being managed at the healthcare
facility can foster a culture of early identification of complications and promote better preparedness for acute morbidities. It is necessary to go beyond surveillance and implement
interventions to improve the quality of maternal care, Facility-based interventions can include the implementation of
evidence-based guidelines, the use of reminders, opinion
leaders endorsement, and continued audit and feedback to
achieve behavioural and process changes.29,31 It would also
lead to interventions aimed at increasing the awareness of
danger signs among providers at lower level facilities as well
as community-based providers to minimise the delays in
referrals to prevent both maternal morbidity and mortality.
Conclusions
There is growing interest in the application of the maternal
near-miss concept as an adjunct to maternal mortality.
However, in the literature published before 2011 there was
still important variation in the criteria used to identify
maternal near-misses. An organ-system dysfunction
approach remains as the most epidemiologically sound set
of criteria. WHO recently published criteria based on
markers of management, and clinical and organ dysfunction, which is currently being adopted by researchers and
organisations around the world. By using the uniform
criteria, clear data on near miss can be systematically
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Disclosure of interests
None.
Contribution to authorship
All of the authors participated in the formulation of the
methodology for this review. OT performed the literature
search and reviewed all abstracts and full text articles with
assistance from JPS and DC. OT wrote the first draft of the
manuscript and MJH, JPS, DC and LS assisted in the writing and editing of the manuscript.
Funding
None.
Acknowledgements
The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors
as individuals, and do not necessarily represent the views
of the WHO and its member states.
Supporting Information
Additional Supporting Information may be found in the
online version of this article:
Table S1. Characteristics of included studies (N = 82).
Please note: Wiley-Blackwell is not responsible for the
content or functionality of any supporting information
supplied by the authors. Any queries (other than missing
material) should be directed to the corresponding author. j
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