Perceptions and experiences of intravenous iron treatment for anaemia in pregnancy in Malawi: a formative qualitative study

Data collection procedures

We used a semi-structured interview guide for the in-depth interviews (IDIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) (see Extended data¹²). The IDI and FGD questions administered to pregnant women related to concepts, procedures, experiences and health outcomes. Specifically, we asked the women their experiences when they visited the ANC, including their experiences with the medication, treatment, and care they received. We also wanted to know their views on the acceptability of IV iron and what process they used to decide to join the study. The IDI questions for health workers focused on perceptions about the benefits and challenges of administering IV iron treatment and the enabling and constraining factors to integrate IV iron treatment within the ANC continuum of care model for pregnant women diagnosed with moderate or severe anaemia. The tools were piloted by a researcher and health worker to check for clarity, relevance, comprehensiveness, and question flow. Unfortunately, we could not pilot our interview guides on pregnant women because of their availability challenges during our interview piloting phase. Despite that, we felt confident that the tools would work because we piloted them on a female researcher with experience with ANC care. Questions that we identified as ambiguous and not relevant to answering the main study objectives were amended or removed.

Owing to the exploratory nature of this research, sample size was not formally calculated. However, we aimed to interview 12-15 pregnant women at each participating site and conduct at least 2 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with pregnant women and 2-10 IDIs with health care workers. For the FGDs, our minimum sample size was between 6-12 participants per FGD.

Participants were purposively selected using a criterion-sampling strategy to identify and choose the pregnant women who had received IV iron treatment and health workers who had administered the intervention (as part of the REVAMP trial). The sampling strategy was chosen because we wanted to interview individuals who had experience receiving and distributing the intervention. They would possess first-hand knowledge of IV iron treatment and provide detailed information, making them information-rich participants. We identified the eligible women who had participated at both REVAMP trial sites in Blantyre and Zomba. The trial site coordinators provided us with the participant ID and contact numbers. Participants were called by telephone and invited to participate in an interview or focus group discussion. Only those who had confirmed availability and expressed a willingness to participate were invited on a mutually agreed date and time.

Data were collected from December 2019 to January 2020 by one Malawian research assistant trained on the protocol and data collection methods and conducted the interviews and focus group discussions. The research assistants were familiar with the local context and spoke the local language (Chichewa).

The IDIs and FGDs were held in private spaces. For instance, the IDIs and FGDs were conducted in private rooms at the two health facilities. We conducted the IDIs and FGDs with the pregnant women in Chichewa (the local language), and audio-recorded (with permission) and later transcribed in Chichewa and then to English. The health worker interviews were all conducted in English. The interviews lasted anywhere between 45 to 60 minutes. The IDIs provided most of the data used in the analysis. Towards the end of the field-work period, the same concepts, ideas and perspectives were re-emerging in the in-depth interviews. After the point where the data material appeared complete, a few more interviews were conducted, affirming the impression that thematic saturation had been reached¹³. The FGDs did not add any new themes but instead confirmed what had already been expressed in the interviews.

Data analysis

Data analysis was iterative and ongoing throughout the data collection process. The research assistants [MK, GC] and the principal investigator [LMT] checked the transcripts against the recorded interviews for completeness. Next, the research assistants and the principal investigator coded data separately and agreed upon a final coding scheme for all the data collected. Using qualitative data analysis software, QSR NVivo 12 (RRID: SCR_014802), we performed a thematic comparative analysis to identify key concepts that emerged from the interview data^14,15. This analysis consisted of identifying common ideas in the data, exploring relationships among the data to identify patterns, and grouping the data into thematic categories. Emerging categories were compared to identify higher-level themes that explain participant and health worker perceptions, experiences, and attitudes towards IV iron treatment.

Ethical considerations

The University of Malawi’s College of Medicine Research and Ethics Committee (COMREC) granted ethical approval for the research (P.06/19/2711) on 8^th September 2019. All methods were performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and the COMREC guidelines on Health Research. Also, permission to collect data in the health facilities was obtained from the District Health Office (DHO) in Blantyre and Zomba. Written informed consent was provided in Chichewa or English, per the participant's language preference. Literate participants provided a signature on the consent form, and illiterate participants provided a thumbprint. Participants were informed that confidentiality would be maintained and that no personal details would be divulged. Lastly, participants were told that their involvement in the research was voluntary and that withdrawal was permitted at any time and without personal consequence.

Experiences and consequences with IV iron infusion

Women reported experiencing fear and apprehension about receiving IV iron treatment. Most fears that the women described were about the procedure of receiving an injection. Tolerability was, however, one specific concern that a woman expressed. “I was worried about whether my body will tolerate it and whether it will yield good results” (IDI-PW-02-BT). Apart from tolerability, some women expressed feeling ill after receiving the intervention. These feelings were described as having shortness of breath, difficulty walking, temporary sight impairment and headache.

A health worker also expressed initial apprehensions with administering the intervention but observed that only a few women reported feeling ill. In addition, the side effects the women experienced were manageable over time.

Concerns with IV iron infusion

Although there was general acceptance of receiving and administering IV iron infusion, studies in communities will always raise suspicion. These suspicions are amplified if the interventions are new. The women we interviewed expressed community concerns about miscarriage, Satanism and vampirism. As one woman revealed, “There are misconceptions that people say concerning studies or about this study, for example, they say it makes one miscarry; hence many people fear to join this study.” (IDI-PW-11-BT). Another woman informed us that her landlord said once that “the blood samples collected from us, you sell them” (FGD-P3-01-ZA).

The health workers we interviewed also reported similar community misconceptions and the challenges they experienced recruiting and retaining participants.

Additional concerns were expressed by the participants related to confusion over the colour of the treatment.

In addition to the concerns around drawing blood, other potential barriers to implementing and administering IV iron infusion to treat anaemia in pregnancy were raised. For example, some participants raised issues concerning the cost associated with procuring the treatment and how the treatment is administered. One pregnant woman, in particular, introduced the concern of experiencing pain with the procedure.

Health workers echoed the above concern because they experienced a reluctance from participants to be injected with FCM.

Another health worker mentioned the concern around the time it takes to administer the intervention as a possible barrier since the infusion of the drug takes about 15 minutes and can cause an adverse reaction.

Conditions supporting the administration of IV iron

There were shared views on the perceived benefits of IV iron infusion between women and health workers. Participants identified advantages related to the single treatment dose and perceived improvements in health and maternal-child health outcomes. In addition, most women reported having started feeling better and getting stronger a few days or up to two weeks of receiving the intervention.

Furthermore, one health worker had “witnessed that those women who have taken IV therapy give birth to children of adequate birth weight and even more than that.” (IDI-HW-27-ZA).

Strategies to consider when introducing IV iron infusion

To further explore what methods would facilitate the implementation of IV iron treatment in Malawi, the pregnant women interviewed suggested using participant advocates as part of public or community engagement strategies.

Another woman echoed the above view who suggested informing women about this treatment at places in the communities where they commonly meet. “We can even use places where we women get water because this is where women meet in large numbers. So bring this issue at this place, I think someone can be interested and learn something” (FGD-P5-01-ZA).

One health worker echoed this strategy and recommended using patient participants as health advocates to dispel some of the treatment’s confusion and myths.

Other strategies proposed included radio programs to inform the public of the benefits of receiving IV iron treatment for pregnant women with anaemia.

Building health workers' capacity through training was a critical strategy to deliver the intervention. Lastly, engaging local and national stakeholders to present the REVAMP trial’s evidence was vital in influencing a policy change.

Presenting the REVAMP trial results to health policy-makers will inform all health policy stakeholders and plan the challenges and health system bottlenecks that need addressing.

Acceptability of IV iron for pregnant women in Malawi

This is the first study in Malawi to describe participants’ perceptions and experiences of intravenous iron treatment for anaemia in pregnancy. This formative study’s findings reveal the preference for IV iron infusion as a single dose therapeutic. IV iron was tolerable and, to this end, acceptable to women who received the treatment and experienced the benefits. However, some significant barriers or conditions would affect health system implementation and community acceptance and affect uptake among women who might benefit from the treatment.

Conditions affecting the acceptability of IV iron infusion

The health workers in the trial expressed their challenges in recruiting and retaining participants, mainly because of superstitious narratives and perceptions about the research. Participants’ superstitious perceptions of biomedical research in Africa are deep-rooted and widespread, and Malawi is no exception^18,19. These views stem from the colonial era when White colonial health officials came in cars and vans and collected blood from Africans²⁰. While beliefs and fears of witchcraft and “bloodsuckers” are still prevalent today, these present-day bloodsuckers – who are not of the Dracula variety – are viewed as strangers in the community²⁰. Stories of strangers that include Malawian, non-Malawian or White health researchers who move around in villages recruiting research participants, drawing or collecting biospecimens are pervasive in literature. Health researchers and doctors have been likened to vampires, but instead of having fangs, they use needles and unspecified technology to steal people’s blood²⁰. As Sharra observes, “the shift from traditional medicine to advanced health management systems, which involves the collection of blood samples to detect infections and treat diseases, creates and reinforces a suspicion”²¹. Similar superstitions and concerns emerged in this study with collecting biospecimens (even though specimens were only collected during the trial and will not be collected in routine care). The worries about blood taking exist because blood represents life or death²²—the taking of blood links to women’s concerns about miscarriage and the selling of blood²³.

These perceptions presented a challenge to the recruitment and retainment of study participants and challenged the notion of acceptability. Geissler and Pool caution medical researchers to not reject or ignore such perceptions because they sometimes impede recruitment to research, affect adherence to interventions and even threaten the whole continuation of research²³. Furthermore, they suggest that perceptions and concerns such as these contain local interpretations of medical research ethics²³, especially regarding a lack of proper community engagement in medical research and public health interventions.

Health system implementation barriers

In this study, FCM was provided free of charge to the participants in the study. Nevertheless, health workers in the trial mentioned the cost of treatment as a barrier. Published literature also suggests that the cost of screening for IDA in limited-resource settings is prohibitive²⁴. In Malawi’s public health facilities, health services have been provided freely by the government since it gained independence from colonial rule in 1964²⁵. The exemption of user fees is to expand access to health care²⁶. Through the Ministry of Health, Malawi's government is responsible for providing cost-effective interventions targeting a limited number of diseases and conditions that rank highly in disease burden²⁶. Literature suggests that treatment with FCM versus oral iron tablets is cost-effective despite the higher acquisition cost²⁷. However, this study did not evaluate the cost-effectiveness of introducing this intervention. Nevertheless, we can surmise that the single dose of FCM required to replenish iron stores in pregnant women with anaemia would provide a cost-efficient way to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality morbidity.

There is a lack of literature on implementing evidence-based practice in rural and remote settings²⁸. Health workers in the REVAMP trial suggested that another significant barrier to overcome upscaling the intervention is to provide training to frontline health workers (for example, midwives, doctors, pharmacists, laboratory technicians) to detect and treat anaemia in pregnancy with FCM. The development of a protocol to guide detection and treatment by health workers providing antenatal care (ANC) will be essential to guide clinical decision making. The REVAMP trial protocol and the protocol standard operating procedures (SOPs) for detecting and treating anaemia in pregnancy would be a useful starting point²⁴.

Overall, our study’s health workers saw the implementation of IV iron infusion in pregnancy as highly feasible. However, there were considerable concerns about health system issues that would need to be addressed before the full-scale implementation of FCM to treat anaemia in pregnancy in low-resource settings like Malawi.

Conditions supporting the acceptability of IV iron infusion

Some pregnant women we interviewed suggested using participant advocates to help ease the introduction and implementation of IV iron treatment for pregnant women in Malawi. Beyond the exercise of community engagement, we argue that researchers and research teams must promote collaborative partnerships in research for the research to be perceived to have social value and scientific validity. The engagement of communities in research will help address the misunderstanding surrounding the colour of the treatment and learning about the practical challenges of introducing a new intervention. Greiten et al. propose that these concerns present an opportunity for the medical staff within international research teams to develop culturally sensitive communication engagement strategies that help increase the information provided to communities through some form of community participation (e.g., inviting patients to visit the laboratories), and sensitization or even avoiding the colour red in symbols and products related to the intervention²². When research is culturally sensitive and genuinely focused on community benefits, it meets the criteria for ethical research in low-resource settings²⁹.

Underlying data

Datasets used and analyzed during the current study are not publicly available because consent was not obtained from the participants to make their data public. However, individuals interested can apply for access to the data if they wish to replicate the study, analyse the data or reuse it. One can access the dataset by clicking the link https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/1CHREM¹² and request permission to access the dataset.

Extended data

Harvard Dataverse: Replication Data for Perceptions and experiences of intravenous iron treatment for anaemia in pregnancy in Malawi: A formative qualitative study. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/1CHREM¹².

This project contains the following extended data:

Data are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).