Pregnant women with complex health conditions
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Establishing a Northern Ireland dataset of pregnant women with complex health conditions and developing an e-learning resource to facilitate staff training needs when caring for pregnant women with heart conditions.
IRAS ID
173594
Contact name
Marlene Sinclair
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Ulster University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 9 months, 1 days
Research summary
The number of pregnant women with complex health conditions, due to a disability (McKay-Moffat, 2007) or long-term or chronic condition (Kersten et al., 2014), is increasing. Disabled pregnant women report environmental barriers, staff attitudes and lack of knowledge by the multi-professional team (Walsh-Gallagher et al., 2012, 2013). Often disabilities and chronic conditions overlap and similar issues arise. The profile of pregnant women with complex health conditions in Northern Ireland, is unknown .
This study aims to establish a Northern Ireland dataset of pregnant women with complex health conditions and to design a learning resource for health care professionals caring for pregnant women with heart conditions.
Phase one is a Context Analysis (Stockdale et al., 2011). An internet desktop search is followed by retrieval and analysis of data from the Northern Ireland Maternity System (NIMATS), the Enhanced Prescribing Database (EPD) and the Northern Ireland Multiple Deprivation Measure (NISRA, 2010) via the Honest Broker Service (HBS). This will enable anonymous profiling of conditions experienced by women in Northern Ireland who used maternity services over a one year period (approximately 25,000 women) and inform search terms to be applied for a systematic literature search. The second phase, Information Analysis (Stockdale et al., 2011) will be a training needs analysis of health care professionals caring for women with heart conditions. The third phase, Audience Analysis, will involve an observational, ethnographic study of pregnant women with heart conditions, receiving maternity care at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. It will also involve interviews with women living with heart conditions who have had a successful pregnancy. In the fourth phase, a prototype for a learning package for health care professionals will be designed. This will be evaluated in phase five, with maternity care staff and service users invited to comment on it's relevancy.
REC name
HSC REC B
REC reference
16/NI/0012
Date of REC Opinion
26 Feb 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion