Reproductive Health in Women with Physical Disability: A Conceptual Framework for the Development of New Patient-Reported Outcome Measures.

Background

Barriers in the built environment, enduring stereotypes and biases, and limited disability competency of health care providers compromise access to and quality of reproductive health care for women with physical disabilities. One way to improve our understanding of critical factors that drive reproductive health inequity and its impact on access to care is to use patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) that capture relevant and meaningful information about experience. In this study, we developed a conceptual framework as the foundation for relevant and clinically meaningful patient-reported outcome measures targeting the interface of disability and reproductive health. Materials and

Methods

We conducted semistructured focus groups and interviews to assess women's experiences around their reproductive health and contextual factors related to disability. We used deductive and inductive qualitative coding approaches to develop the conceptual framework.

Results

Eighty-one women between the ages of 16 and 50 with a self-reported physical disability, defined by an impairment of mobility, participated in 13 focus groups (N = 64) and 17 individual interviews. Five major themes characterized the conceptual framework that emerged-knowledge about reproductive health, communication about reproductive health, relationships, the reproductive health care environment, and self-advocacy/identity-all of which had some relationship with five major reproductive health issues-pregnancy and labor/delivery, periods and menstrual management, contraception, sexuality and sexual functioning, and pelvic examinations.

Conclusions

This conceptual framework will serve as a foundation for PROM and guide intervention development to reduce reproductive health inequity and improve reproductive health outcomes of women with physical disabilities.