Validation of maternal report of nutrition‐related interventions and counselling during antenatal care in southern Nepal

• Published in: Maternal and child nutrition 2022-04, Vol.18 (2), p.e13303-n/a
• Main Authors: Bryce, Emily, Katz, Joanne, Heidkamp, Rebecca, Lama, Tsering Pema, Khatry, Subarna K., LeClerq, Steve, Munos, Melinda
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: area under curve; Child; Counseling; counselling; Female; Humans; mental recall; Mothers; Nepal; Original; Pregnancy; Prenatal Care; sensitivity and specificity; Surveys and Questionnaires
• ISSN: 1740-8695; 1740-8709; 1740-8709
• DOI: 10.1111/mcn.13303

The delivery of nutrition‐related interventions and counselling during antenatal care is critical for a healthy pregnancy for both mother and child. However, the accuracy of maternal reports of many of these services during household surveys has not yet been examined. Our objectives were to assess the validity of the maternal reports of 10 antenatal nutrition interventions, including counselling, and examine associates between maternal characteristics and accuracy. Maternal report of services received collected during a post‐partum survey was compared to the gold standard, the direct observation of all women's antenatal care visits. Individual‐level validity was assessed by calculating indicator sensitivity, specificity and area under the operating curve (AUC). The inflation factor (IF) measured population‐level bias. For five indicators, the high true coverage limited our ability to assess the validity of the maternal reports. There were no indicators that had both high individual‐level validity (AUC > 0.70) and low population bias (0.75 < IF 89%) for the majority of indicators. Maternal reports resulted in higher coverage estimates than what was observed for all but one indicator. No indicator assessed had high individual level validity (AUC > 0.70) and low population bias (0.75