Sustainable antenatal care services in an urban Indigenous community: the Townsville experience

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the impact of a sustained, community-based collaborative approach to antenatal care services for Indigenous women. Design: Prospective quality improvement intervention, the Mums and Babies program, in a cohort of women attending Townsville

Effectiveness of interventions to provide culturally appropriate maternity care in increasing uptake of skilled maternity care: a systematic review

“…All studies but two were conducted in high-income, OECD-member countries: Australia ( n  = 6) (Nel and Pashen 2003; Jan et al 2004; NSW Health 2005; Panaretto et al 2005, 2007; Kildea et al 2012), the United States of America (USA) ( n  = 4) (Julnes et al 1994; Thompson et al 1998; Jewell and Russell 2000; Marsiglia et al 2010), the United Kingdom (UK) ( n  = 2) (Mason 1990; Parsons and Day 1992) and Israel ( n  = 1) (Bilenko et al 2007). The two exceptions were conducted in Peru (McQuestion and Velasquez 2006; Gabrysch et al 2009).…”

“…All studies from Australia targeted Indigenous, Aboriginal and Torres Islander Strait women (Nel and Pashen 2003; Jan et al 2004; NSW Health 2005; Panaretto et al 2005, 2007; Kildea et al 2012). Indigenous women were also the focus in one of the studies from Peru (Gabrysch et al 2009), and the study in Israel targeted semi-nomadic Bedouin women (Bilenko et al 2007).…”

“…Strategies included: using health care providers with shared cultural and/or linguistic background with service users (Thompson et al 1998; Jewell and Russell 2000; Nel and Pashen 2003; Panaretto et al 2005, 2007; Bilenko et al 2007); providing cultural brokers, mediators or interpreters (Mason 1990; Parsons and Day 1992; Julnes et al 1994; Marsiglia et al 2010; Kildea et al 2012); training staff to improve cultural awareness (Jan et al 2004; NSW Health 2005); incorporating culturally appropriate practices (McQuestion and Velasquez 2006) and adapting the setting within which the service is provided (Gabrysch et al 2009). …”

“…By far the most common type of design was a comparison of outcomes between women who received the intervention and controls, largely using retrospective data from birth certificates or service/clinical records. Controls in these studies included target populations before the intervention (Parsons and Day 1992; Thompson et al 1998; NSW Health 2005; Panaretto et al 2005, 2007) or contemporary controls matched on certain characteristics, who received standard services (Julnes et al 1994; Jewell and Russell 2000; Jan et al 2004; Kildea et al 2012). The latter were essentially types of retrospective cohort studies.…”

“…Eight of 12 studies reported improvements in use and/or timing of initiation of ANC (Julnes et al 1994; Jewell and Russell 2000; Nel and Pashen 2003; Jan et al 2004; NSW Health 2005; Bilenko et al 2007; Panaretto et al 2005, 2007). One of three studies reported increases in birth at a health facility (Julnes et al 1994; McQuestion and Velasquez 2006; Gabrysch et al 2009).…”