Abstract
Background: Maternal mortality and morbidity related to childbirth constitutes a health burden in low- and middle-resource countries (LMRCs)1. Home births carry a risk by not receiving proper medical help. This project aims to understand different stakeholders’ perspectives of unassisted/ unskilled home birth. Two research questions are examined: (1) What are the perspectives of stakeholders’ (e.g. women’s, birth attendants’ etc.) perspectives regarding unassisted/ unskilled home birth in LMRCs? (2) Do these views differ by type of provider (if any)? To address these questions, a qualitative evidence synthesis is being conducted and current findings are reported.
Methods: The student (KR) developed a protocol. Electronic databases were searched and updated. References were input into EPPI-Reviewer software and duplicates were removed. References were screened by three reviewers (KR, HS, GB). Data will be extracted and assessed for their methodological quality using the CASP tool. Two reviewers (KR, GB) will complete these steps separately to resolve any disagreements. Data will be analyzed using framework synthesis methods. Findings of the review to date were analyzed, summarized and presented narratively in tabular format.
Results: The review has progressed to eligibility screening. Searching identified 515 references. Eligibility screening inter-rater agreement was over 80%2. Screening on title and abstracts resulted in 300 references that were excluded: 71 were duplicates; 33 were not empirical research; 58 were not about birth in LMRCs; 44 were not about unassisted birth; 12 focused on a single medical intervention during home birth; 48 did not provide participant perspectives; and 34 were published prior to 2015. The remaining 215 articles will be retrieved for full text screening.
Discussion: Next steps will involve retrieval and screening on full text, data extraction and synthesis, then recommendations for policies. This would be a great master’s project, as there is a considerable amount of research in this area.
