Pregnant women's knowledge of obstetric danger signs and health-seeking behavior in developing countries: A scoping review
Keywords:
Awareness, Maternal health, Maternal mortality rate, Obstetric danger signs, Actions to seek health assistanceAbstract
To determine the evidence-based relationship between pregnant women's knowledge of obstetric danger signs and health-seeking behavior in developing countries. This review used the Prisma-ScR checklist. The review focused on searching articles in databases (PubMed and Science Direct), to find relevant articles published in 2015-2025 with the keywords used (pregnant women, knowledge, awareness, pregnancy danger signs) with the framework used for this review is PICO. There were 395 articles found and sorted based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, resulting in 16 articles used in this study. Furthermore, this study used a five-step framework adapted from Arksey and O'Malley to extract data, as well as compile, summarize and report the results. The results of the study found 16 studies that met the inclusion criteria. The study showed that the majority of respondents knew at least one obstetric danger sign during pregnancy, namely bleeding. The determining factors are higher educational status, more pregnancy experience, more frequent ANC visits, and delivery in a health facility. The implementation of integrated efforts is expected to increase mothers' knowledge about obstetric danger signs, awareness and attitudes towards health services in health facilities, thereby providing safer and more beneficial delivery options for mothers and babies.
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