Interventions to Enhance Facility Deliveries in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Scoping Review

Objectives: The objectives of this review were to identify and map evidence of interventions to enhance facility deliveries in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Methods: A search for all relevant existing reports in the literature was conducted in December 2020 using the following online bibliographic databases: PubMed, EMBASE, and CENTRAL. A manual search of the reference lists of relevant systematic reviews and all identified studies was performed to identify additional studies. Two reviewers independently screened the titles and abstracts of the retrieved studies, and then screened the full text identified as inclusion in the initial screening.

Results: The search of electronic databases and hand searching identified a total of 6682 articles. A total of 40 reports were identified for full-text review, and 31 reports were excluded. Finally, nine trials were included in the scoping review, and a total of 29,892 women were included in this review. Of nine trials, one was conducted in Nepal, and the other eight trials were performed in Africa: Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zambia. Our review found the following effective interventions to enhance facility deliveries: group antenatal care (ANC), birth plans, full vouchers, conditional cash transfers (CCTs), non-monetary incentives, and short message service (SMS).

Conclusion: Women who received group ANC, promotion of birth plans, full vouchers, CCTs, non-monetary incentives, and SMS were significantly more likely to deliver at a facility.