Conflict Between Maternal Autonomy and Child Health in Substance-use

September 7, 2016 updated by: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Mother vs. Child? Healthcare Worker Perceptions of Conflict Between Maternal Autonomy and Child Health When Providing Care for Pregnant Women Engaging in Problematic Substance Use

Qualitative project, comprising open-ended semi-structured interviews with healthcare workers, who provide antenatal care to substance-using women.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Detailed Description

Maternal substance use during pregnancy (including legal and illicit substances) is a fairly common global phenomenon, including in the UK. This can have significant effects on pregnancy, infant outcome and enduring consequences into adolescence. Babies born with neonatal abstinence syndrome may spend months in neonatal care units, requiring complex, 24hour care. Here, healthcare workers may experience conflict between preserving maternal autonomy, and the challenge of caring for a withdrawing newborn.

However, there is discrepancy between the objectives of policy-makers "Reducing the harm to children from parental problem drug use should become a main objective of policy and practice" and those recommended in healthcare "These women need supportive and coordinated care during pregnancy." Therefore, conflict arises between mother-centred and child-centred models of caring for pregnant women who use substances.

The objective of the proposed project is to investigate how healthcare workers providing treatment for pregnant women who use illicit substances perceive their duty of care and whether they experience tension between the conflicting objectives of mother-centred and child-centred approaches through semi-structured qualitative interviews. The investigators will explore the ways in which healthcare workers frame problematic substance misuse in pregnant women, what they perceive to be the major challenges in providing care and their views on the responsibility of a mother to have a healthy baby. The main hypothesis is that healthcare workers providing care for pregnant women engaging in problematic substance misuse experience conflict between mother-centred and child- centred approaches to care.

Study Type

Observational

Enrollment (Actual)

6

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United Kingdom
      • Brighton, United Kingdom, BN2 5BE
        • Trevor Mann Baby Unit, Royal Sussex County Hospital

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • ADULT
  • OLDER_ADULT
  • CHILD

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Sampling Method

Non-Probability Sample

Study Population

Healthcare workers may include Specialist Midwives, Obstetricians, Substance Misuse Charge Nurses, Neonatologists and Health Visitors. Women using substances are defined as those who are being seen at the clinic (either due to self-referral, or due to referral by a healthcare worker), at any time during their pregnancy. I have personal experience of working in this clinic, which is run in an NHS hospital on the South Coast of the UK.

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Healthcare workers will be recruited based on their employment status; they must currently provide some form of antenatal are for women who engage in problematic use of substances (limited to illicit drugs, excluding tobacco and alcohol).
  • Healthcare workers will not be restricted by age, and all genders will be included. As the research is qualitative, a representative same is unnecessary.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Healthcare workers will be excluded if they do not have experience of providing ante-natal care for women who engage in problematic substance misuse (limited to illicit drugs, excluding tobacco and alcohol) during their pregnancy.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Perceptions of conflict between maternal and child-centred approaches
Time Frame: 4 months
Qualitative data of perceptions of conflict.
4 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Chloe Knox, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

May 1, 2016

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

August 1, 2016

Study Completion (ACTUAL)

September 1, 2016

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 9, 2016

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 13, 2016

First Posted (ESTIMATE)

June 14, 2016

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ESTIMATE)

September 8, 2016

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

September 7, 2016

Last Verified

May 1, 2016

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 10890
  • 201264 (OTHER: IRAS Number)
  • FI0816115 (OTHER: LSHTM Sponsorship Certification Number)

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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