Correction: Reduction of late stillbirth with the introduction of fetal movement information and guidelines - a clinical quality improvement

Stillbirth rate is not reduced after a quality improvement intervention

Kjell Salvesen   (2011-03-11 15:06)  Trondheim University Hospital and NTNU

In this correction paper the authors have reanalysed the results from a previous paper (Tveit JV, Saastad E, Stray-Pedersen B, Børdahl PE, Flenady V, Fretts R, Frøen JF. Reduction of late stillbirth with the introduction of fetal movement information and guidelines - a clinical quality improvement. BMC Pregnancy Childbirth 2009;Jul 22;9:32)

In Table 1 the following data (children > 28 weeks or > 1000 g) are given:
Original comparison OR 0.69, 95% CI (0.50-0.96)
Reanalysis (cross validated data) OR 0.79, 95% CI (0.57-1.09)

These data should be interpreted as a statistically significant 31% reduction in stillbirth rate in the original comparison and a non-significant 21% reduction of stillbirths in the reanalysis.

Since this reanalysis failed to demonstrate a statistically significant reduction in stillbirth rate, the study results may be due to chance. Thus, there is no scientific evidence that the quality improvement reduced the stillbirth rate in the population.

The conclusion of this correction paper should be that reduced mortality during the quality improvement intervention as reported in the original paper was not confirmed in the reanalysis of the cross validated data.

Competing interests

No competing interests

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