Assessment of components of quality maternal and newborn care: review methods and findings
Review 1: women’s views and experiences of maternal
and newborn care
To assess evidence on what women and newborn infants
need from maternal and newborn services, we did a
review of meta-syntheses of qualitative studies of
women’s views and experiences (review 1). The appendix
shows detailed methods and results from the 13 metasyntheses
identified and the included studies and quality
assessment. Although data were predominantly from
high-income countries, 20 of the 229 studies were done
in low-income and middle-income countries.
In summary, women’s views and experiences reported in
these meta-syntheses showed the inter-relationship
between the different components of quality care
identified in figure 2. Women reported that information
and education were essential to allow them to learn for
themselves, that they needed to know and understand the
organisation of services so they could access them in a
timely way, that services needed to be provided in a
respectful way by staff who engendered trust and who were
not abusive or cruel, and that care should be personalised
to their individual needs, and off ered by care providers
who were empathic and kind. Particularly, women wanted
health professionals who combined clinical knowledge
and skills with interpersonal and cultural competence.
These findings were of crucial importance in identification
of components of quality maternal and newborn care.