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Abstract
Introduction A quarter of all births in the UK are to mothers born outside the UK. There is also evidence that immigrant women have higher maternal and infant death rates and of inequalities in the provision and uptake of maternity services/birth centres. The topic is of great significance to the National Health Service because of directives that address inequalities and the changing patterns of migration to the UK. Our main question for the systematic review is ‘what interventions exist that are specifically focused on improving maternity care for immigrant women in the UK?’ The primary objective of this synthesis is to generate new interpretations of research evidence. Second, the synthesis will provide substantive base to guide developments and implementation of maternity services/birth centres which are acceptable and effective for immigrant women in the UK.
Methods and analysis We are using a narrative synthesis (NS) approach to identify, assess scientific quality and rigour, and synthesise empirical data focused on access and interventions that enhance quality of maternity care/birth centres for the UK immigrant women. The inclusion criteria include: publication date 1990 to present, English language, empirical research and findings are focused on women who live in the UK, participants of the study are immigrant women, is related to maternity care/birth centres access or interventions or experiences of maternity.
In order to ensure the robustness of the NS, the methodological quality of key evidence will be appraised using the Center for Evidence-Based Management tools and review confidence with CERQual (Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative Research). Two reviewers will independently screen studies and extract relevant evidence. We will synthesise evidence studying relationships between included studies using a range of tools.
Dissemination Dissemination plan includes: an e-workshop for policymakers, collaborative practitioner workshops, YouTube video and APP, scientific papers and conference presentations.
- immigrant women
- maternity care
- United Kingdom
- systematic review
- narrative synthesis
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Footnotes
Contributors GMAH conceptualised the review and drafted the original grant proposal with CE, MM and KKB. JE developed and implemented the scoping review strategy. BH drafted the manuscript for publication with input from other team members. All authors approved the final version of the protocol for publication.
Funding This systematic review is funded by the UK National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Health Services and Delivery Research Programme (Grant No. HS&DR-15/55/03). Along with funding, NIHR also contributed in peer reviewing the funding proposal containing the review protocol. Any amendments (if required) in the protocol would be done in consultation with NIHR. Sponsor: Department of Health (DoH)-NIHR (543808).
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.