(Press-News.org) In this week's PLoS Medicine, Julia Hussein from the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and colleagues assess the evidence for the effectiveness of interventions that aim to help pregnant women reach health facilities during an emergency in developing country settings. In a systematic review of the literature they found that the level of evidence for emergency obstetric referral interventions was poor and that limitations in the design of individual studies made determining the effect of referral interventions on outcomes difficult.
The authors note, "[d]espite the wealth of literature describing means to improve women's access to maternity care during emergencies, know-how for effective implementation remains limited."
###Funding: This work was completed with funding from the Department of International Development (DFID). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: SM and JH were authors on some of the studies considered for inclusion in this systematic review and were involved in the implementation of the interventions. They were not involved in assessment of their studies. All other authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Citation: Hussein J, Kanguru L, Astin M, Munjanja S (2012) The Effectiveness of Emergency Obstetric Referral Interventions in Developing Country Settings: A Systematic Review. PLoS Med 9(7): e1001264. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001264
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http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001264
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http://www.plos.org/media/press/2012/plme-09-07-hussein.pdf
Evidence for emergency obstetric referral interventions in developing countries is limited
2012-07-11
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