Part IX of the project "Re-orientation of the Austrian parent-child preventive care programme" aimed at providing an overview of screening recommendations during pregnancy, puerperium and early childhood formulated in evidence-based guidelines as decision support for a re-oriented parent-child preventive care programme in Austria.

A systematic search in two databases was supplemented by a comprehensive hand search on websites of international institutions that develop evidence-based guidelines. The (German or English) guidelines were selected based on inclusion criteria which particularly focused on methodological quality criteria.

With regard to screening recommendations during pregnancy, childbirth and early childhood, a total of 138 guidelines were included in the analysis, involving recommendations related to 92 health threats. The screening recommendations of the institutions (in their original wording) were complemented by additional information from the guidelines (concerning screening methods, treatment options and potential harm). All included guideline recommendations were consequently assigned to 5 categories:
The "pro or contra screening" category involves all recommendations that are clearly in favour or against a particular screening measure. Screening recommendations that consider restrictions (e.g. concerning screenings for specific target groups or screenings for which only recommendations of a single institution could be identified) were labelled as "tend to be pro or contra screening". Finally, unclear or controversial recommendations (e.g. if pro and contra screening recommendations were identified concerning a particular health threat) were assigned to the category "unclear/conflicting recommendations".

This project report (i.e. the "assessment") provides a comprehensive, systematic review of (practical) recommendations from evidence-based guidelines of international institutions on screening measures during pregnancy and early childhood. These recommendations may serve to support decisions regarding a potential re-design of the Austrian parent-child preventive care programme. The policy decision on both the implementation of new measures and the adaptation of existing approaches, requires the "appraisal" of the evidence base provided in this report. This also necessitates considering any limitations outlined in the report, such as the observed heterogeneity of the recommendation levels. Apart from screening effectiveness and safety, additional criteria influencing the implementation of a population-wide screening programme need to be considered. Furthermore, the involvement of national experts in assessing current screening practice standards, epidemiological background information, etc., should be continued before a new preventive care programme is set up.

UPDATE 2014 (pregnancy/puerperium): We updated the part on screening measures during pregnancy and puerperium to include recent guidelines which were identified through a handsearch. Taking into consideration the 31 additionally included guidelines, this update now summarises recommendations from a total of 101 evidence-based guidelines developed by 12 institutions dealing with 48 health threats during pregnancy. For screening during puerperium, we identified recommendations on 6 health threats from 6 guidelines published by 5 institutions.