Magnitude, disparity, and predictors of poor-quality antenatal care service: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background

Antenatal care is directed toward ensuring healthy pregnancy outcomes. Quality antenatal care increases the likelihood of receiving an effective intervention to maintain maternal, fetal, and neonatal well-being, while poor quality is linked to poor pregnancy outcomes. However, owing to the complex nature of quality, researchers have followed several approaches to systematically measure it. The evidence from these variable approaches appears inconsistence and poses challenges to programmers and policymakers. Hence, it is imperative to obtain a pooled estimate of the quality of antenatal care. Therefore, considering the scarcity of evidence on the quality of antenatal care, this study aimed to review, synthesize, and bring pooled estimates of accessible evidence.

Objective

This study aimed to estimate the pooled magnitude and predictors of quality of antenatal care services and compare regional disparity.

Method

We conducted a comprehensive systematic three-step approach search of published and unpublished sources from 2002 to 2022. The methodological quality of eligible studies was checked using Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal tool for cross-sectional studies. Meta-analysis was carried out using STATA version 16. Statistical heterogeneity was assessed using Cochran's

Results

The global pooled poor-quality antenatal care was 64.28% (95% CI: 59.58%-68.98%) (

Conclusions

The study found regional and country-level disparities in the quality of antenatal care services for pregnant women, where poor-quality antenatal care services were provided for more than two-thirds to three-fourths of antenatal care attendants. Therefore, policymakers and health planners should put a great deal of emphasis on addressing the quality of antenatal care services.

This study aimed to estimate the magnitude, disparity, and predictors of the quality of antenatal care services. A comprehensive literature search was conducted from August 24/2022 to September 08/2022 found that a total of 76 studies with a sample size of 940,164 were included in the final analysis. The global pooled poor quality of antenatal care service utilization was 64.28%. The study found that nearly two-thirds of pregnant women worldwide received poor-quality antenatal care services, and nearly 3/4th of pregnant women in Ethiopia received poor-quality ANC. This study discovered continental, regional, and country-level disparities in the quality of antenatal care services, with pregnant women in the Asian, African, and South American continents using low-quality antenatal care services compared to those in North America and Europe. The authors strongly recommend providing high-quality antenatal care based on WHO recommendations globally for pregnant women in need of quality services at all levels to provide quality healthcare to the target population.

Informations de copyright

© The Author(s) 2024.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.