What effects might the recommendations have on practice?
The recommendation to take account of other clinical features when assessing women for suspected pre-eclampsia might lead to an increased need for follow-up and surveillance. However, this will also reduce the chance that a diagnosis of pre-eclampsia is missed by raising awareness of the multi-system nature of the disease, and so could reduce the number of women who go on to develop complications from undiagnosed pre-eclampsia. Not all secondary care units currently use automated dipstick analysis to screen for proteinuria, so the recommendations might increase the need for automated reagent-strip reading devices. However, the accuracy and reliability of screening will be improved, reducing the need for further investigations for some women and correctly identifying more women who need further testing or investigations.