The primary audience for this guideline is health professionals who are responsible for developing national and local health protocols and policies, as well as managers of maternal and child health programmes and policy-makers in all settings. The guideline will also be useful to those directly providing care to pregnant women, including obstetricians, midwives, nurses and general practitioners. The information in this guideline will be useful for developing job aids and tools for both pre- and inservice training of health workers to enhance their delivery of care to prevent and treat maternal peripartum infections.

Contents

• Acknowledgements
• Acronyms and abbreviations
• Executive summary
• 1. Background
  • Definitions and terms
  • Rationale and objectives
  • Target audience
  • Scope of the guideline
• 2. Methods
  • Contributors to the guideline
  • Identification of priority questions and critical outcomes
  • Identification and retrieval of evidence
  • Quality assessment and grading of the evidence
  • Formulation of recommendations
  • Declaration of interests by external contributors
  • Decision-making during the technical consultation
  • Document preparation and peer review
• 3. Results
  • Guiding principles
  • Evidence and recommendations
• 4. Research implications
• 5. Dissemination and implementation of the guideline
  • Guideline dissemination and evaluation
  • Guideline implementation
• 6. Applicability issues
  • Anticipated impact on the organization of care and resources
  • Monitoring and evaluating the guideline implementation
• 7. Updating the guideline
• 8 References
• Annex 1 External experts and WHO staff involved in the preparation of the guideline
• Annex 2 Critical and important outcomes for decision-making
• Annex 3 Summary and management of declared interests of Guideline Development Group members
• Annex 4 Summary of the considerations related to the strength of the recommendations (balance worksheets)
• Evidence base

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