Forms of care likely to be beneficial
Effectiveness summaries
Pages containing effectiveness summaries classify all interventions evaluated in RHL into six categories based on the degree of their effectiveness as shown below. The purpose of presenting the interventions in this format is to enable readers to determine quickly what the available evidence indicates about each intervention.
Clinical practice
- Audit and feedback: effects on professional practice and health-care outcomes
- Clinical pathways: effects on professional practice, patient outcomes, length of stay and hospital costs
- Continuing education meetings and workshops: effects on professional practice and health-care outcomes
- Educational outreach visits: effects on professional practice and health-care outcomes
- Lay health workers in primary and community health care for maternal and child health and the management of infectious diseases
- Local opinion leaders effects on professional practice and health care outcomes
- Tailored interventions to overcome identified barriers to change: effects on professional practice and health-care outcomes
- The impact of conditional cash transfers on health outcomes and the use of health services in low- and middle-income countries
Fertility regulation
- Advance provision of emergency contraception for pregnancy prevention
- Depot-medroxyprogesterone versus norethisterone enantate for long-acting progestogenic contraception
- Immediate postabortion insertion of intrauterine devices
- Immediate start of hormonal contraceptives for contraception
- Pain control in first trimester surgical abortion
- Surgical methods for first trimester termination of pregnancy
- Techniques for the interruption of tubal patency for female sterilization
- Vasectomy occlusion techniques for male sterilization
Gynaecology
HIV
Improving clinical practice
- Audit and feedback: effects on professional practice and health-care outcomes
- Clinical pathways: effects on professional practice, patient outcomes, length of stay and hospital costs
- Continuing education meetings and workshops: effects on professional practice and health-care outcomes
- Educational outreach visits: effects on professional practice and health-care outcomes
- Lay health workers in primary and community health care for maternal and child health and the management of infectious diseases
- Local opinion leaders effects on professional practice and health care outcomes
- Tailored interventions to overcome identified barriers to change: effects on professional practice and health-care outcomes
- The impact of conditional cash transfers on health outcomes and the use of health services in low- and middle-income countries
Maternal health
- Alternative techniques and materials for caesarean section
- Amnioinfusion for meconium-stained amniotic fluid
- Amnioinfusion for potential or suspected umbilical cord compression in labour
- Antibiotic regimens for endometritis after delivery
- Antibiotic regimens for management of intra-amniotic infection
- Calcium supplementation during pregnancy for preventing hypertensive disorders and related problems
- Drugs for treatment of very high blood pressure during pregnancy
- Early postnatal discharge from hospital for healthy mothers and term infants
- Education for contraceptive use by women after childbirth
- Maternal positions and mobility during first stage of labour
- Methods of delivering the placenta at caesarean section
- Midwife-led versus other models of care for childbearing women
- Pelvic floor muscle training for prevention and treatment of urinary and faecal incontinence in antenatal and postnatal women
- Planned early birth versus expectant management (waiting) for prelabour rupture of membranes at term (37 weeks or more)
- Position in the second stage of labour for women without epidural anaesthesia
- Prenatal administration of progesterone for preventing preterm birth in women considered at risk of preterm birth
- Prevention of recurrent miscarriage for women with antiphospholipid antibody or lupus anticoagulant
- Support for breastfeeding mothers
- Surgical procedures to evacuate incomplete miscarriage
- Tocolytics for preterm labour
- Traditional birth attendant training for improving health behaviours and pregnancy outcomes
- Treatment for primary postpartum haemorrhage
- Ultrasound for fetal assessment in early pregnancy
- Umbilical vein injection for management of retained placenta
- Vacuum extraction versus forceps for assisted vaginal delivery
Neonatal health
- "Kangaroo mother care" method to reduce morbidity and mortality in low-birth-weight infants
- Air versus oxygen for resuscitation of infants at birth
- Continuous distending pressure for respiratory distress in preterm infants
- Cup-feeding versus other forms of supplemental enteral feeding for newborn infants unable to fully breastfeed
- Devices and pressure sources for administration of nasal continuous positive airway pressure in preterm neonates
- Early skin-to-skin contact for mothers and their healthy newborn infants
- Early surfactant administration with brief ventilation vs. selective surfactant and continued mechanical ventilation for preterm infants with or at risk for respiratory distress syndrome
- Interventions to prevent hypothermia at birth in preterm and/or low-birth-weight infants
- Intravenous midazolam infusion for sedation of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit
- Vitamin A supplementation for preventing morbidity and mortality in very-low-birth-weight infants