Bioethics in Childbirth Care: Protocol for a Scoping Review

BACKGROUND: Ensuring women’s rights during childbirth care based on humanized and bioethical principles results in better quality of care and patient safety and provides positive childbirth experiences. OBJECTIVE: We aim to explore the available evidence on the application of bioethical principles in the general context of childbirth care. METHODS: Our scoping review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute Reviewer’s Manual. Published and unpublished bibliographic materials will be considered based on the following inclusion criteria: reports of the application of bioethical principles (concept) in assistance to the predelivery, childbirth, and postpartum periods (population) in the hospital context (context). We will search for relevant studies in PubMed and the Virtual Health Library, including MEDLINE, LILACS, BDENF, SCiELO, Web of Science, and Google Scholar. Two reviewers will perform the screening of titles and abstracts, read the full texts, and extract data from the selected articles. The data will then be organized and expressed into categories based on their content. RESULTS: The analyzed data will be presented through flowcharts, tables, and descriptive narratives. A paper summarizing the findings from this review will be published in a peer-reviewed journal. In addition, a synthesis of the key findings will be disseminated to health services linked to university hospitals in Brazil. They will also be shared with the academic community and policy makers involved in the Childbirth Assistance Network, which will potentially adopt our recommendations in their decision-making process regarding childbirth care practice in Brazil. CONCLUSIONS: The findings from this review will inform, through the translation of knowledge, childbirth support groups, feminist movements, movements in favor of humanization of childbirth, and other childbirth support networks in the country. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Open Science Framework; https://osf.io/kczyr/