Women’s experiences of discussing health behaviours within their maternity care: a systematic review and meta-synthesis

INTRODUCTION: Health behaviours are important because they have been linked to pregnancy outcomes. During maternity care women are provided with health information, but little is known about how women experience these discussions. Therefore, a systematic review was conducted to investigate women's experiences of discussing health behaviours within their maternity care interactions. METHODS: Bibliographic databases were searched to retrieve studies reporting qualitative data regarding women's experiences. Included records were assessed for quality using the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme tool and then thematically synthesised. A professional and public stakeholder group was consulted for feedback at multiple stages. FINDINGS: Women's experience from 81 records was captured within three themes. Theme 1 presents how women feel they do not know enough about health, theme 2 shows that women want to have a discussion about health, and theme 3 describes how healthcare provider communication style can impact how engaged women are in a discussion. CONCLUSION: This suggests that healthcare providers should be engaging women in conversations where women can express motivation for change, and then together they can both contribute to shared discussions about the woman's health. Future research should focus on providing support for healthcare providers to achieve this through training and intervention.