Interpreted conversations in perinatal care
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Interpreted conversations between doctors and parents in prenatal and neonatal care
IRAS ID
293623
Contact name
Paul Drew
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of York
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
In a collaboration between neonatologists and linguists, we have been researching conversations between neonatal doctors and parents in neonatal intensive care where their baby has a poor prognosis and discussions are undertaken that relate to redirecting management from intensive to palliative care. This investigation has identified strategies which the doctor can adopt that enhance engagement of parents in these challenging conversations and, with the help of Sands (the stillbirth and neonatal death charity), we have used this work to develop a unique training programme, roll out of which has been interrupted by the pandemic. In this new study we are conducting research into interpreted conversations (English-Urdu/Mirpuri-English) between doctors and parents of babies in antenatal and neonatal care (perinatal care). Having informed parents about a baby’s poor prognosis, including the possibility that their baby may not survive, or may do so only with severe disability, doctors frequently have to communicate palliative care options. Such conversations are always complex and challenging, but they are made more so by language barriers that arise from the interpreting process (e.g. loss of technical medical information). Resulting misunderstandings/misalignments are likely to compromise parents’ meaningful participation in decision-making about treatment and care. This in turn is may be a barrier to equality of access to medical services in perinatal care for parents from an ethnic minority. Our project aims to identify communications problems in interpreted perinatal conversations by video recording conversations between doctors and parents that are dependent on a translator. We aim to integrate our findings into our training in order to optimise the trajectory of these conversations.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester West Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
21/NW/0233
Date of REC Opinion
23 Sep 2021
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion