Parental advice and help for urgent care (PARACHUTE) study
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Understanding how parents of children under 1 year respond to childhood illness and use urgent care services as a single system within NHS Scotland.
IRAS ID
332161
Contact name
Christopher Sweeney
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Edinburgh
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 8 months, 31 days
Research summary
Children under one year are amongst the most frequent users of urgent care services in Scotland. However, there is no research looking at how their parents decide when or where to go when their child is unwell and who to contact.
This research looks at how new parents of children under one year in Scotland respond to childhood illness and decide to attend urgent care. Patients get help from other people and services in their personal network to help access support when ill. This research looks at how these personal networks make it easier or harder for parents to access urgent care.
This research aims to find out:
How new parents of children under one year seek support when their child shows signs of illness
How new parents of children under one year use their networks to make decisions about accessing unscheduled care
If the Health Visiting and Family Nurse Partnership impacts a parents network
Present a conceptual model to partially explain urgent care use in parents of children under 12 months
To do this, the researcher will interview 25 new parents with a child under one year, asking them to map out their support network when answering questions about what they do and who they contact when their child is unwell.
An advisory group of parents was created to support this research. This group includes parents and representatives of parenting charities who have helped design the research questions and recruitment materials. Participants will be recruited from these charities and the Family Nurse Partnership. This research is funded by the Chief Science Office and was borne from the lead researchers experience as a Health Visitor.
REC name
London - Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/PR/1321
Date of REC Opinion
17 Nov 2023
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion