Co-designing Improved Communication of Newborn Bloodspot Screening Results to Parents: Mixed Methods Study

Jane Chudleigh, Lynette Shakespeare, Pru Holder, Holly Chinnery, Gemma Hack, Tanya Gill, Rachel Gould, Kevin W Southern, Ellinor K Olander, Stephen Morris, James R Bonham, Alan Simpson, Louise Moody

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)
57 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Background: Each year in England, almost 10,000 parents are informed of their child's positive newborn bloodspot screening (NBS) results. This occurs approximately 2 to 8 weeks after birth depending on the condition. Communication of positive NBS results is a subtle and skillful task, demanding thought, preparation, and evidence to minimize potentially harmful negative sequelae. Evidence of variability in the content and the way the result is currently communicated has the potential to lead to increased parental anxiety and distress. Objective: This study focused on the development of co-designed interventions to improve the experiences of parents receiving positive NBS results for their children and enhance communication between health care professionals and parents. Methods: An experience-based co-design approach was used to explore experiences and co-design solutions with 17 health professionals employed in 3 National Health Service Trusts in England and 21 parents (13/21, 62% mothers and 8/21, 38% fathers) of 14 children recruited from the same 3 National Health Service Trusts. Experiences with existing services were gathered via semistructured interviews with health professionals. Filmed narrative interviews with parents were developed into a composite film. The co-design process identified priorities for improving communication of positive NBS results through separate parent and health professional feedback events followed by joint feedback events. In total, 4 interventions were then co-designed between the participants through a web-based platform. Results: Parents and health professionals provided positive feedback regarding the process of gathering experiences and identifying priorities. Themes identified from the parent interviews included impact of initial communication, parental reactions, attending the first clinic appointment, impact of health professionals' communication strategies and skills, impact of diagnosis on family and friends, improvements to the communication of positive NBS results, and parents' views on NBS. Themes identified from the health professional interviews included communication between health professionals, process of communicating with the family, parent- and family-centered care, and availability of resources and challenges to effective communication. In response to these themes, 4 interventions were co-designed: changes to the NBS card; standardized laboratory proformas; standardized communication checklists; and an email or letter for providing reliable, up-to-date, condition-specific information for parents following the communication of positive NBS results. Conclusions: Parents and health professionals were able to successfully work together to identify priorities and develop co-designed interventions to improve communication of positive NBS results to parents. The resulting co-designed interventions address communication at different stages of the communication pathway to improve the experiences of parents receiving positive NBS results for their children.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere33485
Number of pages18
JournalJournal of Participatory Medicine
Volume14
Issue number1
Early online date27 Jul 2022
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 27 Jul 2022

Bibliographical note

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in Journal of Participatory Medicine, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on https://jopm.jmir.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.

Funder

This study was funded by the National Institute for Health Research (Health Services and Delivery Research, project reference 16/52/25).

Keywords

  • experience-based co-design
  • health communication
  • neonatal screening
  • participatory research

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