The RESILIENT Study of Post-Pandemic Maternity Care Planning: A Qualitative Research Protocol for In-Depth Interviews With Women, Partners, Healthcare Professionals, and Policy Makers

Abstract

Maternity care is a core service provision of any healthcare system, delivering care for women and birthing people, and their wider family units. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, much of maternity care service provision was reconfigured with the aim of continuing care provision which could not otherwise be re-scheduled or delayed, but in-line with infection control measures instituted through social and physical distancing. The RESILIENT Study was designed to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and pandemic-related reconfigurations to maternity care service delivery. It is particularly concerned with the experiences of minority ethnic groups and those with social or medical complexity. One of our specific objectives was to investigate the experiences of maternity care during the pandemic from the perspective of women and birthing people; fathers, partners, and non-gestational parents; healthcare professionals; and policy makers through the use of in-depth interviews. We will analyse data on virtual care, self-monitoring, and vaccination (each using thematic framework analysis); care-seeking and care experience (using template analysis); and on building an ethical future of maternity care (using grounded theory analysis). This is the focus of this protocol. Our findings about the experiences of care receipt, provision, and planning during the pandemic will complement existing literature and our impact will be broad, on: individual patients, NHS maternity providers, NHS policies, and wider society.