eHealth Interventions in Prenatal and Postnatal Care in Iran: A Systematic Review

Background & aim: Despite the growing popularity of electronic health interventions and their cost-effectiveness in the provision of care services and expansion of services to remote areas, its effectiveness in pregnancy and postpartum care has not been investigated. Therefore, this systematic review was conducted to review the effect of electronic interventions on the health of Iranian mothers. Methods: The English databases including PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar as well as the Iranian databases of SID, Magiran, and Irandoc were searched within 2013-2019 using related keywords in order to obtain the Persian and English articles. Finally, six articles entered the study after the exclusion of duplicate, unrelated, and low-quality papers. Results: Three quasi-experimental studies conducted on pregnancy care and one quasi-experimental study performed on postpartum care before and after the e-health interventions. Moreover, two studies on postpartum care were comparative. The studies were conducted on a variety of topics, including awareness of the risks of pregnancy and postpartum health, franchise model structures, satisfaction of care, and breastfeeding self-efficacy. In total, the effectiveness of the e-health educational intervention was compared in the intervention and control groups in all the included studies (n=6). Conclusion: Electronic learning interventions can effectively help to improve prenatal and postpartum care; however, there is no sufficient evidence to show the associated long-term effects.