Conceptualizing perinatal health-related quality of life for decision making

Increased health care needs during the perinatal period can significantly impact a patient's quality of life. Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) reflects the impact of a patient's health on their physical, mental and social wellbeing. Research has focused on development of tools suitable to measure HRQoL. These can be applied across the perinatal period from conception to postnatal care for use in clinical care, as an aid to shared decision making, in research and as an input to cost-effectiveness analyses used for resource allocation. HRQoL tools are a subset of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs), which help clinicians/researchers understand patient's experience of health. This essay serves as a primer to review the availability, validity and evidence of HRQoL tools for use in perinatal care. While some PROMs are routinely being implemented in pregnancy care, gaps remain regarding the specific impact of HRQoL tools on decision making and their potential use in family planning and neonatal care. Future research is needed to determine whether routine perinatal implementation of HRQoL tools will lead to stronger decision making for patients and providers. Involvement of parents in this process is essential to better understand how HRQoL tools can benefit decision making and perinatal care.