Abstract
BackgroundCollection and storage of an infant’s cord blood at birth is an option available to many new parents. Antenatal health care providers have an important role in providing non-biased and evidence based information to expectant parents about cord blood and tissue banking options. The aim of this paper was to identify and review studies of health care professionals’ knowledge, attitudes and practices concerning cord blood banking and the sources by which healthcare professionals obtained their information on this topic.MethodsAn integrative review was conducted using several electronic databases to identify papers on health care professionals’ knowledge, attitudes and practices pertaining to cord blood banking. The CASP tool was used to determine validity and quality of the studies included in the review.ResultsThe search of the international literature identified nine papers which met review inclusion criteria. The literature review identified that there was little focus placed on antenatal health care professionals’ knowledge of cord blood banking options despite these health care professionals being identified by expectant parents as their preferred, key source of information.ConclusionLimited high quality studies have investigated what health care professionals know and communicate to expectant parents regarding cord blood banking. Further research should focus on understanding the knowledge, attitudes and practices of healthcare professionals and how they communicate with expectant parents about this issue. In addition, how this knowledge influences professional practice around birth is also important, as this may positively or negatively impact the information that is provided to expectant parents.
Highlights
Collection and storage of an infant’s cord blood at birth is an option available to many new parents
The content of two discussion papers [29, 40] addressed key aims relating to health professional knowledge and education, sources of information and current issues faced in practice, these were excluded from final review as they did not meet the criteria for original research
Papers regarding health care professionals’ knowledge, attitudes and practices pertaining to cord blood banking and donation were conducted in North America [49], the United Kingdom [27, 46], Europe [43, 47], North Africa [44, 45] and Asia [50, 51]
Summary
Collection and storage of an infant’s cord blood at birth is an option available to many new parents. Antenatal health care providers have an important role in providing non-biased and evidence based information to expectant parents about cord blood and tissue banking options. The aim of this paper was to identify and review studies of health care professionals’ knowledge, attitudes and practices concerning cord blood banking and the sources by which healthcare professionals obtained their information on this topic. This paper presents a discussion regarding umbilical cord blood banking and donation with a review of the published literature addressing the knowledge, attitudes and practices of health care professionals. For the past 25 years cord blood has been used as an alternative to bone marrow for treatment of blood, immune system and metabolic disorders because of its rich source of haematopoietic stem cells [3]. Cord tissue is a rich source of mesenchymal stem cells which show great potential for use in regenerative medicine. There are many clinical trials underway investigating the benefit of haematopoietic and mesenchymal stem cells for neurological and autoimmune disorders such as Cerebral Palsy, Autism and Type 1 Diabetes [4, 5]
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