Partnering with consumers and practising clinicians to establish research priorities for public hospital maternity services.

Objective An innovative approach by two Queensland health services was taken to establish a shared maternity services' research agenda by partnering with consumers and clinicians. The objective was to set the top five research priorities to ensure that the future direction of maternity research was relevant to end-user and organisational needs. Methods A modified James Lind Alliance (JLA) methodology was applied between August 2022 and February 2023 across two south-east Queensland Health Services which included five participating maternity units and involved partnership with consumers, healthcare professionals and clinician researchers. The reporting guideline for priority setting of health research (REPRISE) was followed. Results There were 192 respondents to the initial harvesting survey, generating 461 research suggestions. These were aggregated into 122 unique questions and further summarised into a list of 44 research questions. The 157 eligible interim prioritisation survey respondents short-listed 27 questions ready for ranking at a final consensus workshop. The top five question themes were: (1) maternity care experience, engagement and outcomes of priority populations; (2) increasing spontaneous vaginal birth; (3) experiences and perceptions of woman/person-centred care; (4) best practice care during the 'fourth' trimester; and (5) antibiotic use during labour and birth. Conclusion Applying an adapted JLA framework can successfully shape and establish a research agenda within Australian health services, through partnership with consumers and practicing clinicians. This is a transparent process that strengthens the legitimacy and credibility of research agendas, and it can form a replicable framework for other settings.

Woman-centred care and integrated electronic medical records within Australian maternity settings: Point prevalence audit and observational study.

OBJECTIVE: Transition to paperless records brings new challenges to midwifery practice across the continuum of woman-centred care. There is limited and conflicting evidence on the relative benefits of electronic medical records in maternity settings. This article aims to inform the use of integrative electronic medical records within the maternity services' environment with attention to the midwife-woman relationship. DESIGN: This descriptive two-part study includes 1) an audit of electronic records in the early period following implementation (2-time points); and 2) an observational study to observe midwives' practice relating to electronic record use. SETTING: Two regional tertiary public hospitals PARTICIPANTS: Midwives providing care for childbearing women across antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal areas. FINDINGS: 400 integrated electronic medical records were audited for completeness. Most fields had high levels of complete data in the correct location. However, between time 1 (T1) and time 2 (T2), persistent missing data (foetal heart rate documented 30 minutely T1 36%; T2 42%), and incomplete or incorrectly located data (pathology results T1:63%; T2 54%; perineal repair T1 60%; T2 46%) were identified. Observationally, midwives were actively engaged with the integrative electronic medical record between 23% to 68% (median 46%; IQR 16) of the time. CONCLUSION: Midwives spent a significant amount of time completing documentation during clinical episodes of care. Largely, this documentation was found to be accurate, yet exceptions to data completeness, precision and location remained, indicating some concerns with software usability. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE: Time-intensive monitoring and documentation may hinder woman-centred midwifery care.

Nonurgent Pediatric Interhospital Transfers: A Narrative Enquiry of Nurses' Experiences in Australia.

INTRODUCTION: This study aimed to explore nonurgent pediatric interhospital transfers through the lens of nurses' experiences and perceptions when undertaking these transfers. METHODS: Using a narrative inquiry approach, data were collected via semistructured interviews with registered nurses (N = 7) who had experience undertaking patient transfers between nonurgent low-acuity and urgent high-acuity hospital settings. RESULTS: Findings established the following 8 themes: ensuring transfer preparation for risk mitigation, practicing confident advocacy, being accountable for risk mitigation of the deteriorating patient during transfer, maintaining standardized procedure, using training and mentorship to support confidence, maintaining interhospital and intrahospital relationships, recognizing the significance of transfer on families, and acknowledging the burden of transfer and delay. DISCUSSION: By exploring the stories and experiences of emergency nurses who undertake pediatric interhospital transfers, a deep investigation of the risks and challenges has been described, an area often underrepresented in the literature. Findings from this study highlight important learnings for pediatric interhospital transfer that add value to the wider body of evidence.

Infant Care Practices, Caregiver Awareness of Safe Sleep Advice and Barriers to Implementation: A Scoping Review.

Modifiable infant sleep and care practices are recognised as the most important factors parents and health practitioners can influence to reduce the risk of sleep-related infant mortality. Understanding caregiver awareness of, and perceptions relating to, public health messages and identifying trends in contemporary infant care practices are essential to appropriately inform and refine future infant safe sleep advice. This scoping review sought to examine the extent and nature of empirical literature concerning infant caregiver engagement with, and implementation of, safe sleep risk-reduction advice relating to Sudden Unexpected Deaths in Infancy (SUDI). Databases including PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, Medline, EMBASE and Ovid were searched for relevant peer reviewed publications with publication dates set between January 2000-May 2021. A total of 137 articles met eligibility criteria. Review results map current infant sleeping and care practices that families adopt, primary infant caregivers' awareness of safe infant sleep advice and the challenges that families encounter implementing safe sleep recommendations when caring for their infant. Findings demonstrate a need for ongoing monitoring of infant sleep practices and family engagement with safe sleep advice so that potential disparities and population groups at greater risk can be identified, with focused support strategies applied.

Challenges parents encounter when implementing infant safe sleep advice.

AIM: To understand which safe sleep recommendations parents find most challenging to implement, identifying common barriers encountered; and investigate whether challenges are associated with practices employed. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey of 3341 Australian families with young infants who birthed a live baby during April-May 2017. Caregivers were asked about infant care practices and family characteristics. Qualitative free-text items explored challenges faced with current safe sleep recommendations. RESULTS: Nearly one-third (n = 1033, 31%) of caregivers reported difficulty with at least one safe sleep recommendation. Infant sleep position and avoiding bed-sharing were identified as the most challenging recommendations. Caregivers described barriers which influenced consistency in uptake of advice. Families who described difficulty with a recommendation were significantly less likely to consistently employ that advice compared to those who did not report difficulty (sleep position: 198/473,42% vs 2548/2837,90% [p < 0.0001]; own sleep space: (269/344,78% vs 1331/2884,46% [p < 0.0001]). When families encountered challenges, they often proposed alternate strategies with an inference their substitute action compensated potential increased risk. CONCLUSION: Many families encounter difficulties implementing safe sleep advice; these challenges negatively impact care practices. Effective interventions meeting individual family needs, to provide safe sleep environments consistently, are necessary to improve sleep-related infant care and further reduce infant mortality.

Awareness of infant safe sleep messages and associated care practices: findings from an Australian cohort of families with young infants.

Objective: To investigate primary infant caregiver awareness of the current national public health safe sleep messages and the associations of awareness with care practices. Design and setting: A cross-sectional survey in Queensland, Australia. All families with live babies birthed during April-May 2017 were eligible. Questionnaires were distributed when infants were approximately 3 months old. Participants: Of the 10 200 eligible families, 3341 (33%) primary caregivers participated. Main outcome measures: Participants were asked: to recall key safe sleeping messages they were aware of (unprompted); questions about their infant care practices; and to select the current, national six safe sleeping messages (prompted multi-choice). Results: Overall, the majority of families are aware of sleep-related infant mortality and sudden infant death (3178/3317, 96%); however, approximately one in four caregivers (867/3292, 26%) could not identify the current six messages to promote safer infant sleep in a multi-choice question. Despite being aware of the six key messages, some caregiver practices did not always align with advice (336/2423, 14% were not smoke-free; 349/2423, 14% were not usually supine for sleep; 649/2339, 28% employed practices which may increase risk of head or face covering; 426/2423, 18% were not receiving breastmilk). Conclusions: There is considerable scope for improvement in parent awareness and ability to recall key safe sleep messages. Awareness of advice does not always translate into safe infant care. Health promotion messaging to encourage safer infant sleep, ultimately aimed at reducing sudden unexpected infant deaths, needs more effective supportive strategies and dissemination if future campaigns are to be successful.

Priority setting: Consensus for Australia's infant safe sleeping public health promotion programme.

AIM: To develop focused priorities to inform the revision of Australia's Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) risk reduction public health programme. METHODS: A content expert consensus research activity was designed using two consensus techniques. The two-phase study employed a Delphi process (phase 1) and a Nominal Group workshop technique (phase 2). The Delphi invited 56 national and international content experts. The Nominal Group comprised 17 Australasian experts and stakeholders to ensure priority setting was relevant to the Australian context. RESULTS: Phase 1 established a ranked thematic list of 10 key SUDI risk reduction themes. Phase 2 addressed three nominal questions producing prioritised lists for: key-message wording; contextual information and strategies to support caregiver implementation of key messages; and considerations in redesigning and dissemination of a safe sleep campaign. The top four priority themes were: sleep position, sleep space, smoking and surface-sharing. CONCLUSION: This two-phase priority setting was successful in establishing clearly defined infant safe sleep priorities. International content expert participation in phase 1 strengthened priority setting outcomes while phase 2 ensured final outcomes provided a strong national focus reflective of identified needs of Australian families. Findings provide a foundation from which important components can be considered when revising and developing future SUDI risk reduction programmes.

Infant care practices and parent uptake of safe sleep messages: a cross-sectional survey in Queensland, Australia.

BACKGROUND: Globally, the incidence of sleep-related infant mortality declined dramatically following the first public health campaigns seen internationally in the 1990s to reduce the risks of sudden infant death. However, Australian Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy (SUDI) rates have plateaued with little change in incidence since 2004 despite two further public health safe sleep campaigns. This study aims to describe contemporary infant care practices employed by families related to the current public health SUDI prevention program. METHODS: A cross-sectional survey of 3341 Queensland primary caregivers with infants approximately 3-months of age was conducted using the Queensland Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages as a sampling frame. Surveys were returned either via reply-paid mail or online. Questionnaires explored prevalence of infant care practices and awareness of safe sleep recommendations. Univariable analysis was used to generate descriptive statistics for key variables. RESULTS: Overall, only 13% of families routinely practised all six 'Safe Sleeping' program messages. More than one third (1118, 34%) of infants had slept in a non-supine sleep position at some time. Potentially hazardous sleep environments were common, with 38% of infants sleeping with soft items or bulky bedding, or on soft surfaces. Nearly half, for either day- or night-time sleeps, were routinely placed in a sleep environment that was not designed or recommended for safe infant sleep (i.e. a bouncer, pram, beanbag). Most babies (84%) were reportedly smoke free before and after birth. Sleeping in the same room as their caregiver for night-time sleeps was usual practice for 75% of babies. Half (1600, 50%) of all babies shared a sleep surface in the last two-weeks. At 8-weeks, 17% of infants were no longer receiving any breastmilk. CONCLUSIONS: The prevalence rates of infant care practices among this Australian population demonstrate many families continue to employ suboptimal practices despite Australia's current safe sleep campaign. Strategic approaches together with informed decisions about pertinent messages to feature within future public health campaigns and government policies are required so targeted support can be provided to families with young infants to aid the translation of safe sleep evidence into safe sleeping practices.