The Iranian Integrated Maternal Health Care Guideline Based on Evidence-Based Medicine and American Guidelines: A Comparative Study
Background: There is a little consistency among prenatal care guidelines. An evidence-based guideline can be used to improve thequality of the mother and child health care. This study was designed to compare the consistency of the Iranian integrated maternalhealth care guideline with evidence-based prenatal care manuals and American guidelines.Methods: In this comparative study, the Iranian guideline recommendations werecomparedwith the content of American prenatalcare according to obstetricsand gynecology recommendations of theU.S. preventive services task force and evidence-based prenatalcare. The strength of the recommendations was assessed based on evidence-based medicine.Results: In this study, 71 recommendations were compared in four parts. About 18.3 percent of the recommendations were consistentwith all guidelines. Screening for group B streptococcus, performing chorionic villous sampling and amniocentesis for at riskwomen, and anomaly screening were not mentioned in the Iranian guideline. The Iranian guideline was consistent with the contentof U.S. preventive services task force in 38% of the recommendations, American Obstetricians and Gynecologists expert panelguidelines in 75.6% of the recommendations, and with evidence-based care in 66.2% of the recommendations.Conclusions: Although there was a little consistency among guidelines, the Iranian guideline had a good consistency with theAmerican guidelines and evidence-based care recommendations. Updating clinical tests and the prenatal screening part of theIranian guideline based on the results of this study may increase the effectiveness of the prenatal care and ultimately improve themother and child’s health.