The DDN Study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Improving the Delivery of Different News to mothers and their families by healthcare professionals.
IRAS ID
230048
Contact name
Esther Mugweni
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Kent
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 11 months, 27 days
Research summary
Receiving different news about an unborn or new-born child is a difficult process for both the family and the healthcare professional delivering the news. The expression “different news” is used in this study to describe the process of receiving or giving sad or difficult information relating to an unborn or a new-born child having a learning disability.
Delivering different news to parents requires a complex array of skills that are crucial in helping them cope and to maintain the patient-healthcare relationship. It is essential that training interventions be developed to support healthcare professionals who perform this task to ensure that families are given adequate support and information during this time.
This study aims to develop and test a delivering different news training intervention for relevant healthcare professionals. All participants will be aged 18 years and over, able to provide consent and from Kent, Surrey and Sussex NHS.
Interviews will be conducted with twelve families to understand the lived experience of receiving different news to understand what went well and what could be improved. The experience of healthcare professionals who are involved in the delivery of different news will be collected through interviews and questionnaires to identify training needs. Furthermore, a literature review on the process of delivering different news to mothers-to-be and the services/support received will be conducted. The information collected will be used to develop the training intervention.
The training intervention will be tested with 30 healthcare professionals to assess acceptability, credibility and feasibility. Interviews with some parents who received different news from the trained healthcare professionals will be conducted. A pre-and post-training questionnaire will be completed by participating healthcare professionals. Interviews will be conducted with a sample to assess practice following the training. The findings will be used to revise the training before rolling out nationally.REC name
East of England - Cambridge East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/EE/0410
Date of REC Opinion
9 Nov 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion