Table 2.

Japanese articles included in the review

Outcomes	Reference	Study design	Intervention	Effect of intervention	Comments
Communication between mothers/caregivers and healthcare providers	Shimizu52 Dominican Republic	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Positive	The handbook helped health personnel clarify the division of work and enhanced their sense of responsibility, communication, continuity, and integration of services.
	Umeda53 Mongolia	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Mixed	Of 42 health providers, 57% used it as a communication tool with mothers and 28% saw the handbook as a tool to nurture the next future generation’s parents.
	Naito et al54 Japan	Retrospective cohort	MCH handbook	Positive	The MCH handbook was handed directly by public health nurses and midwives at community health centres. Direct contact provided mothers an opportunity to learn and consult with healthcare providers.
Satisfaction with the information provided by the home-based records	Hokama et al61 Japan	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Positive	Over 90% of mothers replied that the information in the handbook was useful. The most highly evaluated pages were those on child health, growth, and vaccination.
	Takeda et al62 Japan	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Positive	About 89% of mothers said that the information on childcare was useful, and 87.1% said that the information helped eliminate their worries about their child’s health and growth.
	Yahata & Tanaka63 Japan	Qualitative	MCH handbook	Mixed	To raise the vaccination coverage rate, caregivers proposed having a more explicit message on ‘measles vaccination safety in the MCH handbook’ and information that ‘vaccination can be done even outside your local borough.’
	Aoki et al64 Japan	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	No impact	Parents did not frequently use the information in the MCH handbook. They used the handbook passively rather than actively, and only about half regarded the handbook as user-friendly.
	Umeda53 Mongolia	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Mixed	One respondent wrote that there should be a space for the doctor to write advice instead of just providing information. Another wrote that the handbook should have a space where advice for the father could be written.
	Fujii & Sato65 Japan	Qualitative	MCH handbook	Positive	Mothers who gave birth to twins regarded the MCH handbook as evidence of their readiness to become mothers of twins. It provided them hope of becoming a good mother and reduced their anxiety to having a high-risk pregnancy.
	Ikeda66 Japan	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Mixed	The MCH handbook provided important information about the foster child. Though, inconvenience was noted for those without an MCH handbook and lack some birth information (eg, birth weight, birthplace, blood type, etc)
Satisfaction with services/provider performance	Sugi et al71 Japan	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Mixed	Both caregivers and healthcare providers used the MCH handbook more frequently during health check-ups than consultations. Child and maternal oral hygiene were of the slightest interest, and nutrition during pregnancy was the most used section.
	Fujimoto et al72 Japan	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Mixed	Many caregivers replied in neutral when asked about the usefulness of the handbook. Oral hygiene was the least filled-out, and only a minimum of people responded that this page was useful.
	Aihara et al73 Thailand	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Mixed	There was a low reading rate (14.3% of mothers had read all of the contents) and self-recording (0.9% of mothers had recorded every part). Utilisation of the MCH handbook was related to both mother’s MCH promoting belief (p=0.001) and action (p=0.039).
	Yuge et al74 Japan	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Positive	Mothers found the pages which medical workers filled out useful. These were ‘delivery record,’ ‘vaccination record,’ and ‘neonatal record’ pages. There were very few childcare instruction items/pages which were useful.
Mother–child bonding	Matsumoto et al75 Japan	Quantitative case study	MCH handbook	Positive	About 82.9% of mothers considered giving their MCH handbook to their children, and 76.4% thought that ‘marriage or pregnancy’ was the best time. The MCH handbook is health guidance that can be passed on to future generations and used for a lifetime.
	Seto et al35 Japan	Qualitative case study	MCH handbook	Positive	After confirming the death, the baby’s footprint and handprint were taken as a token, and the baby’s name and words of gratitude for the child’s birth were written in the MCH handbook.
	Yuge et al74 Japan	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Positive	Mothers who had seen their own handbook when younger had a higher continuity awareness than those who had not.
	Tanabe et al76 Japan	Multi-facility cohort study	MCH handbook	Positive	Associations were found between a mother’s course of pregnancy and delivery and her daughter’s. The MCH handbook could offer some predictions concerning her daughter’s pregnancy and delivery.
	Higashiyama et al78 Japan	Qualitative case study	MCH handbook	Positive	Nurses explained how to apply for an MCH handbook before the birth of their adopted child. They introduced the handbook to reduce the anxiety of adoptive parents and build good parent-child relationships.
	Akiba & Furuike79 Japan	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Positive	Children of mothers who wrote at least one record of worrying or anxiety in the MCH handbook were more likely to develop maladaptation in school environment (p<0.05).
	Ogasawara77 Japan	Cross-sectional	MCH handbook	Positive	The loss of records was painful for the mother. The MCH handbook is used by mothers who look forward to their child’s growth. Even if the handbook was dirtied from the tsunami, they would have been happy if they did not lose it.
	Minewaki36 Japan	Qualitative case study	MCH handbook	Positive	Birth plan was realised according to the wishes of the mother and have the medical staff fill out the MCH handbook. The nurse who reflects on the experience tries to understand the grieving process of the mother.

Mixed effect — home-based record showed some evidence of usefulness but not necessarily a significant effect.

MCH, maternal and child health.