The representation of women on Australian clinical practice guideline panels, 2010-2020.

OBJECTIVES: To assess the composition by gender of Australian clinical practice guideline development panels; to explore guideline development-related factors that influence the composition of panels. DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS: Survey of clinical guidelines published in Australia during 2010-2020 that observed the 2016 NHMRC Standards for Guidelines, identified (June 2021) in the NHMRC Clinical Practice Guideline Portal or by searching the Guideline International Network guidelines library, the Trip medical database, and PubMed. The gender of contributors to guideline development was inferred from gendered titles (guideline documents) or pronouns (online biographies). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The overall proportion of guideline panel members - the guideline contributors who formally considered evidence and formulated recommendations (ie, guideline panel chairs and members) - who were women. RESULTS: Of 406 eligible guidelines, 335 listed the names of people who contributed to their development (82%). Of 7472 named contributors (including 511 guideline panel chairs [6.8%] and 5039 guideline panel members [67.4%]), 3514 were men (47.0%), 3345 were women (44.8%), and gender could not be determined for 612 (8.2%). A total of 215 guideline panel chairs were women (42.1%), 280 were men (54.8%); 2566 guideline panel members were men (50.9%), 2071 were women (41.1%). The proportion of female guideline panel members was smaller than 40% for 179 guidelines (53%) and larger than 60% for 71 guidelines (21%). The median guideline proportion of female panel members was smaller than 50% for all but two years (2017, 2018). CONCLUSIONS: The representation of women in health leadership roles in Australia does not reflect their level of participation in the health care workforce. In particular, clinical guideline development bodies should develop transparent policies for increasing the participation of women in guideline development panels.

Intrapartum care measures and indicators for monitoring the implementation of WHO recommendations for a positive childbirth experience: a scoping review.

OBJECTIVE: We aimed to identify all available studies describing measures or indicators used to monitor 41 intrapartum care practices described in the 2018 WHO intrapartum care recommendations, with a view to informing development of standardised measurement of implementing these recommendations. DESIGN: Systematic scoping review. METHODS: We conducted a scoping review to identify studies reporting measures of intrapartum care published between 1 January 2000 and 28 June 2021. Primary and secondary outcome measures included study characteristics (publication year, journal, country and World Bank classification) and intrapartum care measure characteristics (definition, numerator, denominator, measurement level and measurement approach). We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, the Maternity and Infant Care Database, Global Index Medicus and grey literature using structured search terms related to included recommendations, focusing on respectful and supportive care, and clinical practices performed throughout labour and birth. The measures identified were classified by the WHO recommendation and their characteristics reported. RESULTS: We identified 150 studies which described 1331 intrapartum care measures. These measures corresponded to 35 of the 41 included WHO recommendations, and represented all domains of the WHO recommendations (care throughout labour and birth, first stage of labour, second stage of labour, third stage of labour). A total of 40.1% (534 of 1331 measures) of measures were related to respectful maternity care. Most studies used a questionnaire or survey measurement approach (522 of 1331 measures, 39.2%). CONCLUSION: This scoping review presents a database of existing intrapartum care measures used to monitor the quality of intrapartum care globally. There is no clear consensus on a core set of measures for evaluating the practice of the WHO's intrapartum care recommendations. This review provides a foundation to support the development of a core set of internationally standardised intrapartum care measures for the WHO intrapartum care recommendations, highlighting key areas requiring consensus and validation, and measure development.