Investigating the prevalence of preterm delivery in Iranian population: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction: Despite medical advances, preterm delivery remains a global problem in developed and developing countries. Aim: The present study was aimed at conducting a systematic review and meta-analysis of studies on the prevalence of preterm delivery in Iran. Materials and Methods: This systematic review and meta-analysis study was carried out on studies conducted in Iran by searching databases of SID, Magiran, Irandoc, MEDLIB, Iranmedex, PubMed, Web of science, Google Scholar and Scopus. The search was conducted using advanced search and keywords of preterm delivery and equivalents of it’s in Mesh and their Farsi, s Synonymous in all articles from 2000-2016. Finally, 19 articles were included in the study using Hoy et al Tool. After extracting the data, data were combined using random model. Heterogeneity of studies was assessed using I2 index and data were analyzed using STATA Ver.11 software. Results: The total number of samples in this study was 41773. In 19 reviewed articles, the overall prevalence of preterm delivery based on the random effects model was estimated to be a total of 10% (95% CI, 9%-12%). The lowest incidence of low birth weight was 5.4% in Bam (95% CI, 3.9%-6.9%) and the highest prevalence was 19.85% in Tehran (95% CI, 16%-23.7%). There was no significant difference between the incidence of preterm delivery compared to year of study (b= 1×10 -3, p=0.821) and sample size (b=-9.81 × 10 -6, p=0.179) Conclusion: This study reviewed the findings of previous studies and showed that preterm delivery is a relatively prevalent problem in Iran. Therefore, adopting appropriate interventions in many cases including life skills training, self-care and increasing pregnancy care to reduce theses consequences and their following complications in high risk patients seem necessary.