National Women’s Health Plan, Selected Countries Experiences and Necessity of Developing It in Iran: A Narrative Review Article

Background: National plans have an important role in defining vision, goals, priorities, and action plans. The present paper examined the international experience in developing upstream documents concerning women's health; it regards the necessity of developing Iranian women's health plan. Methods: This review, conducted with search in electronic databases and literature of no limitation in terms of years conducted. The phrases such as "woman health policy", "woman health promotion", "woman health strategy" and "woman health plan” were searched. The criteria based on which the countries were chosen were the degree to which they were developed in health system, health indexes, the accessibility of required information, and the possibility of benchmarking the new methods. Results: Emphasize on gender as a determinant of health, increasing the economic activities of women, decreasing the violence against women, gender-based researches, and inter-sectorial approach are some common items in the women’s health plans in selected countries. The main upstream documents about women health in Iran such as ‘Research policies and principles of women issues’, “Women Charter of Rights in Iran” were not developed and implemented in form of a comprehensive plan so we need to formulate a full women health national plan that summarizes all previous policies with addition of new needed strategies inclusion. Conclusion: Developing a national plan for Iranian women’s health regarding with selected countries experiences makes a long-term vision for health and obtains the institutional and organizational efforts and resources necessary for women health promotion in Iran.

Training effect to the knowledge and skills of midwives in maternity health services at primary health care

Background: Maternal mortality is a benchmark for assessing the state of health services of pregnant women in a country. The purpose of this research is to know the effect of training on midwife to increase knowledge and ability of midwife in health service of pregnant woman.Methods: This research used mix-method method with triangulation technique using questionnaire for quantitative stages and conducting contents analysis for qualitative stages. Statistical analysis use Wilcoxon test and paired T test.Results: The result of statistic test shows that the knowledge about the service before the training has a mean of 3.25 and after training has a mean of 5.42. This shows an average increase. The result of T test shows p=0.014 (p<0.05) which means that there is difference of average knowledge about service before with after treatment. As for knowledge about Home visit before training have mean 7.87 and after training have mean of 8.00. The result of statistic test shows p=0.044 (p<0.05) indicating that there is a difference of average knowledge about midwives ability in service before with module test.Conclusions: The training of Ammuntuli bija tianang na beja-beja (home visit) to increase the ability of midwife in pregnant woman health service has an effect on to change of knowledge and ability of midwife in pregnant woman's health service. There is a difference of knowledge and ability of midwife to health service of pregnant mother before and after training.