Parent&rsquo;s Perspective on Continuity of Care in the Maternity Care and Child Health Services Continuum: A Qualitative Systematic Review

Anne C. M. Hermans; Silke Boertien; Lauri M. M. van den Berg; Ank de Jonge; Danielle E. M. C. Jansen; Arie Franx; Jacoba van der Kooy; Marlou L. A. de Kroon

doi:10.5334/ijic.8645

Parent’s Perspective on Continuity of Care in the Maternity Care and Child Health Services Continuum: A Qualitative Systematic Review

International Journal of Integrated Care

Volume 25 (2025): Issue 1

By: Anne C. M. Hermans , Silke Boertien , Lauri M. M. van den Berg , Ank de Jonge , Danielle E. M. C. Jansen , Arie Franx , Jacoba van der Kooy and Marlou L. A. de Kroon

Open Access

|Jan 2025

Abstract

Introduction: While the World Health Organization (WHO) advocates organizing maternity care and preventive child healthcare (PCHC) as people-centred, integrated healthcare services, globally these services are often established separately, causing discontinuity of care. Our aim is to synthesize the evidence concerning what impacts parents’ experience of continuity of care, and how to promote it.

Methods: Qualitative systematic review. Embase, Medline, Web of Science, Cochrane, CINAHL and Google Scholar were searched for studies on parents’ perspectives on integrated care. Helpful practices and issues regarding continuity of care were identified.

Results: We found that parents valued easily accessible, tailored, family-centred care that is a display of interprofessional collaboration and is geared towards supporting and empowering parents.

Discussion: Study strengths are its qualitative nature, allowing for in-depth patient views and experiences, and the multidisciplinary research team, which ensured a multidimensional view of the issue.

Conclusion: Ideally, (a) parents enter the postnatal period well-prepared, and well-informed about self-care, PCHC and possible postnatal carepathways, (b) number of caretransfers is limited, (c) by overlapping maternity care and PCHC, parents are provided with an opportunity to maintain meaningful relationships with their care providers, and (d) information is consistent, family-centred, and tailored.

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Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ijic.8645 | Journal eISSN: 1568-4156

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Language: English

Submitted on: Apr 15, 2024

Accepted on: Jan 14, 2025

Published on: Jan 24, 2025

Published by: Ubiquity Press

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Publication frequency: 4 issues per year

Keywords:

child health care services,

continuity of care,

parent perspective

© 2025 Anne C. M. Hermans, Silke Boertien, Lauri M. M. van den Berg, Ank de Jonge, Danielle E. M. C. Jansen, Arie Franx, Jacoba van der Kooy, Marlou L. A. de Kroon, published by Ubiquity Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 25 (2025): Issue 1