Evidence for Perinatal and Child Health Care Guidelines in Crisis Settings: Can Cochrane Help?

Overview

Journal BMC Public Health

Publisher Biomed Central

Specialty Public Health

Date 2010 Mar 31

PMID 20350326

Citations 2

Authors

Tari J Turner

Hayley Barnes

Jane Reid

Marie Garrubba

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: It is important that healthcare provided in crisis settings is based on the best available research evidence. We reviewed guidelines for child and perinatal health care in crisis situations to determine whether they were based on research evidence, whether Cochrane systematic reviews were available in the clinical areas addressed by these guidelines and whether summaries of these reviews were provided in Evidence Aid.

Methods: Broad internet searches were undertaken to identify relevant guidelines. Guidelines were appraised using AGREE and the clinical areas that were relevant to perinatal or child health were extracted. We searched The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews to identify potentially relevant reviews. For each review we determined how many trials were included, and how many were conducted in resource-limited settings.

Results: Six guidelines met selection criteria. None of the included guidelines were clearly based on research evidence. 198 Cochrane reviews were potentially relevant to the guidelines. These reviews predominantly addressed nutrient supplementation, breastfeeding, malaria, maternal hypertension, premature labour and prevention of HIV transmission. Most reviews included studies from developing settings. However for large portions of the guidelines, particularly health services delivery, there were no relevant reviews. Only 18 (9.1%) reviews have summaries in Evidence Aid.

Conclusions: We did not identify any evidence-based guidelines for perinatal and child health care in disaster settings. We found many Cochrane reviews that could contribute to the evidence-base supporting future guidelines. However there are important issues to be addressed in terms of the relevance of the available reviews and increasing the number of reviews addressing health care delivery.

Citing Articles

Informing infant and young child feeding programming in humanitarian emergencies: An evidence map of reviews including low and middle income countries.

Prudhon C, Benelli P, Maclaine A, Harrigan P, Frize J Matern Child Nutr. 2017; 14(1).

PMID: 28670790 PMC: 6865874. DOI: 10.1111/mcn.12457.

'It is me who eats, to nourish him': a mixed-method study of breastfeeding in post-earthquake Haiti.

Dornemann J, Kelly A Matern Child Nutr. 2012; 9(1):74-89.

PMID: 22784020 PMC: 6860539. DOI: 10.1111/j.1740-8709.2012.00428.x.

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