Mo Zhou
University of Newcastle, Australia, NSW 2304, Australia
Title: Trends, Prevalence and Factors Affecting Caesarean Section Rate in China: A Narrative Review
Biography
Biography: Mo Zhou
Abstract
China has been one of the highest caesarean section rate countries in the world. Caesarean section rate in China appears to experience an increasing trend in the recent years and would continue in the following years. This review aimed to analyse the current trends and prevalence of caesarean section rate in China, as well as the main individual social factors, finally provide some suggestions to control and reduce caesarean section rate. 8 databases including WHO STATISTICS, HUFFINGTONPOST, OECD HEALTH STATISTICS, CHINADMD, CHINAGOV, PCBABY, Google Scholar and CNKI were employed by using key words to obtain journal articles which are related to the research questions. The search returned 181 articles. Based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 156 articles were finally selected in this review. Findings illustrated that the prevalence of caesarean section rate in China has risen and differed based on whether women and their family are from rural or urban areas in the last twenty years, also this trend would keep upward in both urban and rural areas in the next ten years. This review also demonstrated that the factors could be broadly divided into two categories: demand-side factors (education, income and health insurance of Chinese women) and supply-side factors (doctors’ recommendations). Finally, the review provided some recommendations such as employing Robson classification, establishing salary incentives to control caesarean section rate in China.