LITERATURE REVIEW Introduction: Antenatal Care

Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW
LITERATURE REVIEW
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Name of the University:
Author Note:

1LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction:
Antenatal care can be defined as the care that is offered by the care professionals to
pregnant women. It includes the process of offering assistance to the expecting mothers
during the period of pregnancy prior to the delivery of the baby (Azzeh 2013). Antenatal care
is also referred to as maternity care and is administered by the multidisciplinary team of care
professionals that comprises of the GP, Obstetrician and Midwives. The primary role of the
care providers engaged in providing antenatal care characteristically involves regular health
check-up, disseminating essential information to the expecting mothers about their physical
health condition, discussing choices and options related to pregnancy and delivery and
resolving other queries that patients might raise. The World Health Organization (WHO) in
the year 2016 had recommended a revised set of guidelines that had essentially emphasised
on improving the quality of maternity care across maternity ward within healthcare
organizations globally so as to promote positive patient outcome and ensure pregnancy a
positive experience (WHO 2019). It should further be noted in this regard, that the guideline
not only focused on improving the quality of maternity care but also focused on improving
the quality of nutrition offered in healthcare settings and treating the symptoms of
psychological distress in expecting mothers. It should be critically noted here that the global
statistics indicate a high prevalence of pregnancy related deaths and still births which can
supposedly be controlled by improving the quality of antenatal care within healthcare
settings. This paper aims to investigate scholarly research papers in order to evaluate the fact
that whether or not an increase in attendance within the antenatal care unit could help in
promoting positive health outcome in pregnant women.
Research Question:

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On the basis of the background information, the research question that can be
articulated includes the following:
RQ1: Does an increase in attendance within the antenatal care unit improve maternal health
outcome?
RQ2: Does an increase in attendance within the antenatal care unit help in preventing adverse
foetal health outcome?
Research Aim:
The research aim is to scan the evidence base in order to evaluate that whether or not
increase in attendance at the antenatal care unit helps in improving maternal health outcome.
In addition to this, the research also intends to develop an understanding about the adverse
foetal health outcome associated with poor attendance within the antenatal care unit.
Research objectives:
Therefore, on the basis of the research question and the research aim, the research
objectives can be enlisted as follows:
 To evaluate the quality of maternal health outcome on increasing attendance within
the antenatal care unit
 To determine the impact of poor attendance within the antenatal care unit on the foetal
health outcome
Search Strategy:
In order to address the research question, an extensive search was conducted on the
popular electronic databases that included, Google Scholar, PubMed and MedLine.
Electronic databases store a gamut of information in the form of scholarly evidences that help
in formulating an idea about the latest research conducted in the area of interest. The

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electronic databases can be accessed online and can be customized by applying filters such as
publication date and author names. Upon specifying the filters, a wide number of research
papers can be accessed that help in conducting a review of the research papers published in
the topic of interest.
Exclusion Criteria:
According to Walliman (2017), exclusion criteria can be defined as a set of
characteristics that help in excluding a number of research papers that are not relevant to the
research question. Eliminating research papers based on specific exclusion criteria helps in
narrowing down the search into relevant research papers.
In this case, the exclusion criteria comprised of the following:
 Research papers published prior to 2013
 Research papers published in Foreign languages other than English
 Research papers that were not fully accessible
Inclusion Criteria:
As stated by Walliman (2017), inclusion criteria forms the set of characteristics that
help in including relevant research studies that align with the research paper. Papers that
qualify the inclusion criteria are included in the research study.
In this case, the inclusion criteria comprised of the following:
 Research papers published in between 2013 to 2017
 Research papers published in English
 Research papers that were fully accessible and aligned to the key words