Quality Assessment of Healthy Newborn Care in Hospital: A Systematic Review

Quality assessment of newborn care is essential to achie desirable and affecting future health outcomes. This study aimed to review the criteria used to evaluate the quality of healthy newborn care in different studies systematically based on the Donabedeian model.

PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus, Science Direct, Iranmedex, Magiran, and Scientific Information Database (SID) databases were searched oncerning relevant studies with the keyword of "healthy newborn" and "quality of care" and "quality assessment" and their equivalent in Mesh and Persian synonyms. All quantitative, qualitative, English, and Persian-language articles ranging from the beginning of 1998 to the end of September 2019, which examined quality in healthy neonatal care, were included in the study. Of the 2219 articles obtained, 25 were finally included.

After reviewing the studies, the criteria for quality assessment of healthy newborn care were divided into three groups according to the Donabedian model: structure (physical infrastructure, essential drugs and equipment, competent human resources, policies, and clinical guidelines), processes (immediate newborn care and first two hours of birth, delayed newborn care, and neonatal resuscitation), and outcomes (maternal satisfaction, reduction of newborn mortality and complications).

The results of these systematic review showed that currently, there is not a defined comprehensive quality assessment method to take care of a healthy newborn. The development of a comprehensive and reliable tool to assess the quality of these care, which encompasses all the criteria extracted from this study, is essential as a health system requirement to improve the quality of care for healthy newborns.