Program

Nurse-Midwifery M.S.

Year Approved

2022

First Advisor

Hardy, Paige

Second Reader

Renee Clark

Abstract

Introduction: The purpose of this integrative review was to examine how consolidating prenatal care visits can affect attendance, exploring aspects at five different levels of influence. Methods: Whittemore and Knafl’s five-stage review process (2005) was used to appraise original research articles related to prenatal care attendance, both in person and virtual. The PubMed and CINAHL databases were first searched, followed by a manual search of the bibliographies of the identified studies and of three relevant professional journals. The selected articles were uploaded into Covidence and assessed using the 2009 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Results: A total of 1,129 articles were retrieved, with 19 fitting the inclusion criteria. The relevant articles were evaluated using the Johns Hopkins evidence appraisal method and condensed into a matrix. All articles included multiple levels of influence of prenatal care, from the personal level to that of public policy. Only one study specifically explored the effects of having all needed prenatal and support services in a single geographic location. Discussion: There is a dearth of research that examines how consolidating prenatal care visits into a single location and integrating virtual care visits when appropriate affect attendance and compliance with prenatal care schedules for women in the United States. Future research strategies could focus on specific interventions at various levels of influence, from individual care to public policy, that follow the prenatal care guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO) while integrating the needs of local communities.

Degree Name

M.S. Nurse-Midwifery

Document Type

Masterʼs thesis

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