Establishing information needs and research priorities in response to the Covid-19 pandemic in the local maternity setting.
Kerry Evans, Helen Janiszewski, Catrin Evans and 1 others
PMID 33515973WHAT IT FOUND
Fifty-eight maternity workers and women ranked workforce wellbeing, women's mental health, birth choice, breastfeeding support, and women with protected characteristics as top research priorities.
It does not test care.
Key findings
01Between May and September 2020, 58 people contributed to the priority setting project: 27 maternity care workers, 27 service users, and four project leads.
02The project aimed to identify eight most highly ranked topic areas, and the scored list included workforce wellbeing, women's mental health, maternity care leaders' experiences, education, choice and decision making, breastfeeding, women with protected characteristics, and companionship.
03The combined weighted scores were 100% for access or referral to perinatal mental health services and 91% for impact on women's choice of place of birth.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
It was a local priority setting exercise in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, so the priorities may not fit other maternity settings. Only 58 people responded, including 27 service users. The service user group was mostly White British, with 89% identifying as White British, one woman as Asian, one woman as Black, and one woman from a mixed ethnic background. Workforce questions were not presented to service users, and wording differed between groups, so agreement between scorers was not statistically calculated. The project reports research priorities, not patient outcomes or tested care interventions. Linking the priorities to investment decisions was ongoing.
Declared interests
No external funding was associated with the project, and the authors declared no conflict of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the high priority scores as evidence that any maternity intervention works or that these priorities apply everywhere. The study was a local research priority exercise with 58 respondents and no patient outcomes.