Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Healthcare Providers and Healthcare Experiences of Women Regarding Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C): A Scoping Review of Evidence from Canada and the United States.

Abstract

Healthcare providers (HCPs) play a critical role in the care of women with experience of FGM/C although there is limited research on knowledge about FGM/C among HCPs in Canada and USA. Research evidence suggests that many women with experience of FGM/C have negative care experiences. We sought to investigate the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of Canadian and USA HCPs regarding FGM/C, along with women's healthcare experiences with FGM/C in both countries. We conducted a scoping review guided by Arksey & O'Malley's framework. We exported 4054 peer-reviewed records from Embase, Global Health PubMed, Medline, and Scopus databases. After screening titles, abstracts and full texts using inclusion criteria such as publication between 2000 and 2023, a focus on FGM/C and studies conducted in USA and Canada, we included 13 articles in the final review. Care provider studies revealed that HCPs reported a desire for more knowledge and training to enable them to provide high-quality care for women with FGM/C. Majority of the studies have revealed reliance of HCPs on informal learning channels to gain knowledge on FGM/C. Findings reveal that many women with experiences of FGM/C have reported insensitive comments from HCPs including some nurses' unsympathetic behavior toward FGM/C related postpartum discomfort. In some studies, majority of the women felt their doctors were unable to care for them while other women noted that shame and discomfort deterred them from further care seeking. HCPs play an important role in caring for FGM/C patients. Nonetheless HCPs often receive no training or training that is inadequate (insufficient to make providers feel confident to provide care) on how to provide high-quality, culturally competent care leading to poor experiences for women. This necessitates concerted efforts to provide high-quality training of HCPs for better care for women with FGM/C.