Publications by authors named "Biesty L"

Importance: Sepsis is one of the leading causes of neonatal mortality. There is heterogeneity in the outcomes measured and reported in studies of neonatal sepsis. To address this challenge, a core outcome set (COS) for research on neonatal sepsis was needed.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic marked a unique period characterised by an extraordinary global virus spread. The collective effort to halt the transmission of the virus led to various public health initiatives, including a variety of COVID-19 vaccine trials. Many of these trials used adaptive methods to address the pandemic's challenges, such as the need for rapid recruitment.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Neonatal encephalopathy (NE) is a serious condition impacting newborns, where therapeutic hypothermia is the standard treatment, yet many still face long-term issues; the paper aims to create a Core Outcome Set (COS) for consistent reporting in studies.* -
  • A systematic review of 116 papers identified 386 reported outcomes from NE studies, categorized into 18 domains, highlighting a lack of uniformity as no single outcome was universally reported across studies.* -
  • The findings emphasize the need for standardized outcome measures, including family input, to improve the comparison of treatments and enhance research on NE.*
View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • This study looked at how different people, like parents and doctors, feel about the effects of treatments for neonatal sepsis, which is a serious infection in newborns.
  • The researchers found 19 important outcomes that matter to these people, like how the treatment affects parents and their babies' organs.
  • They concluded that it's important to include these personal views in future research to get a full picture of what's important in treating neonatal sepsis, since the views shared were different from what doctors usually report in clinical trials.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Perinatal loss is a traumatic event associated with a high risk of parents experiencing negative psychological outcomes. Despite most parents being in regular contact with midwives and nurses during the perinatal period, there is a lack of evidence which hampers these professionals from using effective psychosocial interventions with parents.

Aim: This study aims to synthesise the existing evidence on the types of psychosocial interventions delivered by midwives/nurses for parents with perinatal bereavement, their impacts on bereaved parents' mental health and the experiences of midwives and nurses in delivering psychosocial interventions for parents experiencing perinatal loss.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Despite one in three women experiencing abuse by an intimate partner in their lifetime, intimate partner violence (IPV) is under-reported. Globally, IPV routine enquiry is used as part of healthcare response to addressing IPV. This paper presents the views of pregnant women (= 40) and providers (= 30) of IPV routine enquiry as part of antenatal care policy in Ireland.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Heterogeneity in outcomes reported in trials of interventions for the treatment of neonatal encephalopathy (NE) makes evaluating the effectiveness of treatments difficult. Developing a core outcome set for NE treatment would enable researchers to measure and report the same outcomes in future trials. This would minimise waste, ensure relevant outcomes are measured and enable evidence synthesis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Neonatal sepsis is a serious illness in newborns, and different studies measure its effects in different ways, making it hard to compare results.
  • Researchers want to create a Core Outcome Set (COS) to standardize what outcomes should be measured for treatments of neonatal sepsis, using input from parents, healthcare workers, and researchers.
  • By getting everyone to agree on what to measure through online surveys and meetings, this project hopes to make research on neonatal sepsis clearer and more useful.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic on 11 March 2020. Vaccine development and deployment were swiftly prioritised as a method to manage and control disease spread. The development of an effective vaccine relies on people's participation in randomised trials.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Delphi surveys are commonly used to prioritise critical outcomes in core outcome set (COS) development. This trial aims to compare a three-round (Multi-Round) Delphi (MRD) with a Real-Time Delphi (RTD) in the prioritisation of outcomes for inclusion in a COS for neonatal encephalopathy treatments and explore whether 'feedback', 'iteration', and 'initial condition' effects may occur in the two survey methods.

Methods: We recruited 269 participants (parents/caregivers, healthcare providers and researchers/academics) of which 222 were randomised to either the MRD or the RTD.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

: Data sharing enables researchers to conduct novel research with previously collected datasets, thus maximising scientific findings and cost effectiveness, and reducing research waste. The value of sharing, even de-identified, quantitative data from clinical trials is well recognised with a moderated access approach recommended. While substantial challenges to sharing quantitative data remain, there are additional challenges for sharing qualitative data in trials.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Part of the caseload of an Advanced Midwife Practitioner (AMP) service in a Northwest of Ireland maternity unit includes vaginal birth after caesarean section (VBAC) women. Despite evidence about VBAC being a safe option for women, the numbers attempting a VBAC remain small. This research was undertaken to give an insight into how VBAC eligible women opt for an elective repeat CS (ERCS) or VBAC birth.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Public and patient involvement aims to improve research quality, relevance, and appropriateness. Despite an increasing evidence base on the influence of public involvement in health research, the role of involvement in methodology research (i.e.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The evidence on what strategies can improve recruitment to clinical trials in maternity care is lacking. As trial recruiters, maternity healthcare professionals (MHCPs) perform behaviours (e.g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To identify the outcomes considered important to parents or caregivers of infants diagnosed with neonatal encephalopathy, hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy or birth asphyxia in high-income and low- to middle-income countries (LMiCs), as part of the outcome-identification process in developing a core outcome set (COS) for the treatment of neonatal encephalopathy.

Design: A qualitative study involving 25 semistructured interviews with parents or other family members (caregivers) of infants who were diagnosed with, and treated for, neonatal encephalopathy, hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy or birth asphyxia.

Setting: Interviews were conducted in high-income countries (HiCs) (n=11) by Zoom video conferencing software and in LMiCs (n=14) by phone or face to face.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Aims: Patient-reported outcomes (PROs) are reports of the patient's health status that come directly from the patient without interpretation by the clinician or anyone else. They are increasingly used in randomised controlled trials (RCTs). In this systematic review we identified RCTs conducted in women with diabetes in pregnancy which included PROs in their primary or secondary outcomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Randomised trials are considered the gold standard in providing robust evidence on the effectiveness of interventions. However, there are relatively few initiatives to help increase public understanding of what randomised trials are and why they are important. This limits the overall acceptance of and public participation in clinical trials.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To conduct a behavioral investigation, using the Theoretical Domains Framework (TDF), to identify barriers and enablers to maternity healthcare professionals (HCP) inviting all eligible women to participate in a maternity care trial.

Study Design And Setting: We invited HCP recruiters from maternity care trials in high priority research areas including, diabetes, preeclampsia and breastfeeding, from across Ireland and the UK, to take part in a semi-structured interview. Data collection was informed by the TDF, followed by inductive thematic analysis and deductive mapping to the TDF.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The best way of comparing healthcare treatments is through a randomised trial. In a randomised trial, we compare something (a treatment or intervention) to something else, often another treatment. Who gets what is decided at random, meaning everyone has an equal chance of getting any of the treatments.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is the most common metabolic complication of pregnancy and its prevalence worldwide is rising. The number of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) being conducted in people with diabetes is also increasing. Many studies preferentially publish findings on clinical endpoints and do not report patient-reported outcomes (PROs).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Pregestational diabetes mellitus (PGDM) is associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes. Studies assessing interventions to improve maternal and infant outcomes have increased exponentially over recent years. Several outcomes in this field of maternal diabetes are rare, making it difficult to synthesise evidence.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

: Data sharing enables researchers to conduct novel research with previously collected data sets, thus maximising scientific findings and cost effectiveness, and reducing research waste. The value of sharing anonymised data from clinical trials is well recognised with a moderated access approach recommended. While substantial challenges to data sharing remain, there are additional challenges for qualitative data.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To develop a core outcome set (COS) for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the effectiveness of interventions for the treatment of pregnant women with pregestational diabetes mellitus (PGDM).

Design: A consensus developmental study.

Setting: International.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: The Delphi method is used in a wide variety of settings as a method of building consensus on important issues. Traditionally, the Delphi method uses multiple rounds of a survey to allow for feedback of other participants' survey responses in between rounds. By informing participants about how others answer a question or prioritise specific topics, it allows for diverse opinions to inform the consensus process.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF