27th November 2024
Karen Hardy is a Specialist Health Visitor for Perinatal and Infant Mental Health at Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust working within the Hull 0-19 Integrated Public Health Nursing Service. She is an iHV PIMH, LGBTQI and Father’s Champion. Karen and the health visiting team at Humber took part in The Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB) study carried out by the Institute of Health Visiting in partnership with the University of Oxford (https://bit.ly/4a7z2hT). The Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust is committed to research and actively encourages and supports all staff to become involved in research at all levels. Ensuring that research is embedded as a core component of clinical services is one of the Trust’s priorities The Hull 0-19 Integrated Public Health Nursing Service is also actively involved with the 0-19 Yorkshire and Humber Clinical Research Network.
Karen Hardy, Specialist Health Visitor for Perinatal and Infant Mental Health at Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust
Engaging in research as a health visitor can often bring about many challenges, and health visitors may be reluctant to participate in research for a number of reasons. Within current health visiting practice, there are significant workload pressures due to high caseload numbers and increasing caseload complexity associated with factors such as poverty, adversity and post-pandemic recovery. This can mean that practitioners struggle to find the capacity for additional roles and responsibilities or further professional development, and finding the time and psychological space to participate in research can be problematic.
In addition to capacity issues, health visitors may be reluctant to engage due to concerns about not having adequate experience or knowledge about the research process and feeling that research is something which is undertaken by academics within university settings or research facilities for clinical trials. Health visitors may also feel that they do not have opportunity to access and participate in research and may not know how to become connected into the world of research. However, this is not always the case and there are lots of opportunities for health visitors to participate in research at many different levels, from helping to recruit participants to a study or taking part in the delivery of an intervention being trialled, right through to undertaking a PhD!
There are many benefits to health visitors in participating in research. On an individual level, it can lead to an increase in knowledge and skills in a particular area of practice, increased understanding of the research process and how accessible it can be, and a sense of pride and job satisfaction at being able to contribute to the evidence base for health visiting. In our experience, health visitors within the Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust reported that their participation in the ADBB research study directly improved and enhanced their skills in understanding infant cues and communication and sparked their interest in this area. It also encouraged them to want to learn more and develop their practice in this area further. One of the health visitors who took part in the ADBB research trial reflected that:
“Once the ADBB training was completed, the tool was easily embedded into my practice to use alongside existing skills to assist in early identification of families in need of additional support. Being able to take part in the research study has been insightful and awoken a real interest in my work. Being able to see how things change in practice and being part of that process of change has been really beneficial to my practice.”
Furthermore, there are wider benefits on an organisational and service level that are associated with a better skilled workforce, a culture of research which encourages others to participate, and improved appeal from a recruitment and retention perspective. Participating in research has benefits for the communities that we work in too. It can enhance care quality by improving practices, providing access to evidence-based health visiting interventions, and supporting families early on – ultimately improving both short- and long-term outcomes for babies and children. Another health visitor participating in the ADBB study commented:
“Participating in this study was one way to make a difference and help to improve the interventions that we deliver, improving the care that we provide and the quality of life now and for future generations.”
Health visitors play an important role in contributing to research. Creating an environment and culture that facilitates this and supporting health visitors to participate in research is often not given much consideration or discussion. To raise awareness, we have written an article titled ‘Contributing to health visiting research: Participating in the ADBB study’ which has just been published in the Journal of Family and Child Health. This article shares the experiences of health visitors and managers from the Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust who participated in the Alarm Distress Baby Scale study. It aims to add to the discussion around health visitors’ contribution to nursing research, taking into consideration barriers and how these can be overcome.
