Pediatric and child health nursing: A three-phase research priority setting study in Western Australia

Priority settings are important to plan and direct future research. The aim of this study was to identify the top ten pediatric and child health nursing research priorities from the perspectives of consumers, community, and healthcare professionals in Western Australia.

This study used an adapted James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership design with three phases. 1) A planning workshop to inform a survey. 2) A survey using five open-ended-questions distributed between October 2020 and January 2021 through social media and healthcare professionals' emails. Responders' statements were analyzed with content analysis. 3) A consensus workshop to finalize and rank the themes.

The planning workshop participants (n = 25) identified gaps such as community child healthcare and confirmed lack of consumer engagement in previous studies. The survey responses (n = 232) generated 911 statements analyzed into 19 themes. The consensus workshop participants (n = 19) merged and added themes, resulting in 16 final themes. The top three ranked themes were: 'access to service', 'mental health and psychological wellbeing', and 'communication'.

The research themes are necessarily broad to capture the wide range of issues raised, reflecting the scope of pediatric and child health nursing.

The priorities will inform future research to be directed to areas of priority for stakeholders who have often not had a say in setting the research agenda.