Background: The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) and proportion of births attended by skilled attendants are the two indicators selected to measure progress towards the achievement of MDG five. By the year 2015, the international community aims to have achieved a 75% reduction in MMR and 90% coverage of women having a skilled attendant at birth. In spite of the importance of this indicator, there is little consistency in how this is monitored and evaluated. This paper provides a review of the literature on the approaches and conceptual frameworks for evaluating progress with skilled birth attendance (SBA). The applicability of current frameworks is reviewed and a new simplified framework for monitoring and evaluation of SBA is proposed.
Methods: We searched electronic databases, internet, publications and databases of organisations. We hand searched reference lists of key papers, using search terms such as skilled attend*, maternal health, maternal mortality, midwi*, health professional, impact*, monitor* and evaluat*.
Findings: there were 44 potentially relevant articles from PUBMED, three from Scopus, seven from WHO, two from UNFPA, one obtained via hand search and one via personal communication. A total of 27 publications were found to be relevant after a review of their abstracts. Of these, 17 were on SBA and maternal mortality, and 10 were on monitoring and evaluation of SBA. Of the publications on monitoring and evaluation of SBA, two studies assessed global coverage of SBA, eight studies evaluated specific programmes and three of these had a 'conceptual framework'.
Conclusions: No standard framework to evaluate progress made in ensuring increased coverage with skilled birth attendance currently exists. There are three published conceptual frameworks, each of which has valuable and workable components as well as limitations. A simplified systems approach to the Monitoring and Evaluation of SBA using structure, process and outcome criteria is proposed.
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