Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 30, 2025
A Detailed Protocol for Physiological Parameters Acquisition and Analysis in Neurosurgical Critical Patients
Published on: October 17, 2017
Developing a method to capture parental experience in a neonatal surgical centre in the context of COVID-19: a
Rebecca Kate Mernenko1, Anna Littlejohns2, Gary Latchford3
1Department of Paediatric Surgery, Leeds Children's Hospital, Leeds, West Yorkshire, UK.
Insights
This study developed a systematic process to capture parental experiences in neonatal surgical care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings will improve healthcare services for infants and families, especially vulnerable groups.
Area of Science:
- Neonatal surgery
- Healthcare delivery
- Parental experience
Background:
- Parental experience significantly impacts infant health outcomes.
- The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted healthcare services, necessitating adaptation.
- Understanding parental perspectives is crucial for service improvement.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a systematic process for capturing parental experiences in neonatal surgical care during the pandemic.
- To identify key themes and questions for assessing parental journeys.
- To establish effective dissemination strategies for service development.
Main Methods:
- Stakeholder identification and engagement.
- Semistructured interviews with parents.
- Thematic analysis of interview data.
- Cognitive testing and piloting of the developed interview protocol.
Main Results:
- Inclusion of 'difficult to access' parent groups is essential.
- Key themes cover pre-admission information, in-patient care, support, pandemic impact, and discharge.
- Dissemination strategies include local, regional, and national forums, with participant feedback.
Conclusions:
- A stakeholder-grounded protocol was developed to assess parental experience in neonatal surgical care.
- The protocol is pragmatic, methodologically sound, and adaptable for other units.
- This systematic approach aims to enhance parental and infant well-being through service improvement.
Introduction:
Improved parental experience is related to improved mental and physical health outcomes for the infant. The COVID-19 pandemic abruptly impacted on healthcare delivery and services need information to shape how to manage the disruption and recovery.
Methods:
Our aim was to develop a systematic process to capture parents' experience of their neonatal surgical healthcare journey during the pandemic. We identified relevant stakeholders and using semistructured interviews, we explored three key themes.(1) How to recruit and collect data from representative parents?(2) What questions should be asked?(3) How to disseminate results for service development?
Results:
Responses indicated the need to involve 'difficult to access groups' (eg, first language not English, high social deprivation, low health literacy), defined the range of family and patient characteristics variables to be considered for representative responses (eg, antenatal diagnosis, disease complexity, number of siblings, single parent, parental health). The proposed questions were grouped into five main topics: information preadmission; in-patient experience; support during admission; the effect of COVID-19; discharge and posthospital experience. Recommendations for dissemination included local, regional and national fora as well as the need to feedback to participants about the changes made.Based on the analysis, we developed a semistructured interview which underwent cognitive testing, prepilot and pilot phase testing.
Discussion:
This protocol is grounded in the views of relevant stakeholders to ensure it captures relevant information in a pragmatic but methodologically sound way. It will next be used to assess parental experience in a large neonatal surgical unit. We hope that the protocol could be adapted and used by other groups.
More Related Videos
09:03Nasal Brushing Sampling and Processing Using Digital High Speed Ciliary Videomicroscopy – Adaptation for the COVID-19 Pandemic
Published on: November 7, 2020
09:51Model Surgical Training: Skills Acquisition in Fetoscopic Laser Photocoagulation of Monochorionic Diamniotic Twin Placenta Using Realistic Simulators
Published on: March 21, 2018
