Unstructured Parental Feedback at A Tertiary Maternity Hospital: A Cohort Study Using Routinely Collected Health Data

Hospital care for neonates can be challenging for parents, and a negative parental experience can affect the well-being of the infant after discharge. A family-centred approach is the gold standard of care in neonatology.

This study aimed to identify common themes in voluntary unstructured feedback received from parents and caregivers of infants admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit, special care nursery or postnatal ward or followed up by neonatal outpatient services at a tertiary Australian Women and Children's Hospital. These findings are intended to inform the development of effective family-centred neonatal care approaches.

This single-centre observational study used routinely collected unstructured parental voluntary feedback received between 2010 and 2021. All feedback is entered prospectively in the online consumer feedback module of a reporting database (RiskMan). Deductive thematic analysis (whereby themes, codes and categories were chosen prior to the analysis) was used to analyse the extracted quotations.

During the study period, 3533 unstructured feedback items were received. Most of the feedback received was compliments (2725/3533, 77.1%). The main feedback category was 'staff competency and efficiency', which accounted for 80.8% (2201/2755) of the compliments and 45.0% (364/808) of the complaints. Most complaints were from outpatient services and postnatal wards and centred around 'infrastructure and systems' (280/808, 34.7%) and 'information, explanation and communication' (152/808, 18.8%).

Parental satisfaction was positively affected by 'staff competency and efficiency'. This study supports collecting and analysing unstructured feedback to reflect parental experiences and drive quality improvement.