Women's Decision-Making And Factors Affecting Their Choice Of ...

The 10 key words used in the search identified 25,345 studies. The search
term childbirth was then eliminated as it was too wide, reducing the number of
hits to 3,329. The 3,329 studies were stored in the systematic review database,
and all duplicate references identified and transferred to the duplicate database,
leaving 477 studies in the main database. All studies that did not relate to
childbirth were transferred to the irrelevant database, leaving 150 studies in the
pool. The title and abstract of each was read, and if it did not address the issue of
choice of place of delivery was considered irrelevant and sent to the irrelevant
database, leaving 25 studies for the final review process.
Whole documents of the 25 papers were retrieved, and the studies read in
detail applying the inclusion criteria, which specified that studies had to address
women's views on factors affecting their choice of place of birth. Nine studies
failed to meet the inclusion criteria and were removed, leaving 16 that reported
about women's views about the place of birth. Of the 16 studies, only 9 had
aimed to ask women about their reasons for choosing their place of delivery. The
other 7 studies reported women's views although they did not set out to determine
reasons for choosing the place of birth (Bastian 1993; McClain 1983; McClain
1987; Morison, Percival, Hauk et al 1999; Ogden, Shaw, and Zander 1997;
Townsend-Fullerton 1982; Waldenstrom and Nilsson 1993). The 7 studies were
therefore eliminated from the review. The 9 remaining studies that met the
inclusion criteria, and specifically reviewed reasons for choosing a place of
delivery are summarised in Table 4.
Information abstracted from the studies and included in Table 4 comprises
the study, and where it was conducted, to determine the coverage of studies in
different countries. It also includes the study sample, i.e., who is included, how
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