Reproductive Health Care in Catholic Facilities: A Scoping Review

Given the rise in Catholic ownership of U.S. health care facilities, we aimed to examine reproductive health care provision and patient outcomes. We performed a scoping review, which maps the literature and considers inclusion of studies that are not specifically quantitative.

We searched five databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science and Cochrane Library, ClinialTrials.gov) from inception through August 2018 using terms related to reproductive health care and religion.

We screened 2,906 studies. Articles were included if in English, included primary research data, and referenced U.S.-based Catholic facilities. We reviewed the reference lists of included articles. We excluded articles that addressed the relationship of patient or health care provider religion to provision of reproductive services, described reproductive health care services in non-Catholic facilities, or reported legal cases or concerns. Two independent reviewers screened all citations, a third reviewer resolved differences, and all three reviewers categorized included citations.

We included 27 studies. Investigators most commonly focused on the provision of emergency contraception (n=9) or other contraceptive and sterilization methods (n=7); few focused on a range of family planning methods (n=3), natural family planning (n=2), ectopic pregnancy management (n=2), abortion care (n=2), miscarriage management (n=1), and infertility care (n=1). The most common study designs were cross-sectional (18/27 [67%]) and qualitative investigations (6/27 [22%]). Common data collection approaches included surveys, interviews, and mystery caller designs. Two studies involved authors with Catholic hospital affiliations and one of these reported patient outcomes; no other patient outcome reports were found. Studies cited restrictions to care in comparison with non-Catholic settings and multisite studies demonstrated variable rates of provision of reproductive health services across Catholic sites.

Despite the significant proportion and recent growth of Catholic health care within the U.S. health care sector, little is known about reproductive health outcomes in these settings and in comparison with other settings.