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Abstract
Introduction Up to 1 in 4 pregnancies and 1 in 20 subsequent pregnancies end in miscarriage. Despite such prevalence the psychosocial effects are often unrecognised and unsupported. In the absence of any biomedical sequelae among men such marginalisation may be intensified. Men living through multiple miscarriages may also find any grief or anxiety intensified by loss of hope for future parenthood, but robust qualitative studies of these experiences are limited. We aim to rectify the deficiency.
Methods and analysis Our qualitative study will adopt the sounds of silence framework designed by Serrant-Green to hear the voices of populations possibly marginalised. We will listen and learn from 30 to 50 men with a history of two or more miscarriages. The research participants will be recruited from a recurrent miscarriage clinic at a large tertiary hospital in England, and from advertisements to be disseminated by the project sponsor and miscarriage charities.
Individual telephone interviews supported by a semistructured discussion guide will be audio-recorded, transcribed and anonymised. The transcriptions and any field notes will be interpreted by the framework method of Ritchie and Lewis embedded within the sounds of silence framework. Tentative findings will be presented to research participants in face-to-face focus group discussion, to enable member synthesis to enhance authenticity. The focus group discussion will be audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymised and similarly interpreted to contribute to our final synthesis.
Ethics and dissemination The protocol of this project received a favourable opinion from the West Midlands South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee (16/WM/0423). Results will be submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals and at conferences, and disseminated via newsletters and social media of our clinical collaborators and miscarriage charities. Outputs are anticipated to inform future policy and practice in the management of multiple miscarriages.
Trial registration number ISRCTN 21828561.
- gynaecology
- public health
- qualitative research
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
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Footnotes
Twitter @drlauraljones, @QuanShumaet
Contributors AC is the director of Tommy’s National Centre for Miscarriage Research, and chief investigator of the study. LLJ and AET guided methodological decisions necessary to design the project, and will oversee implementation. With the support of coauthors, HMW drafted the detailed study protocol, participant information literature and this manuscript. All authors contributed to critical revisions of the detailed study protocol, participant information literature and this manuscript. All authors also reviewed the final manuscript.
Funding This study is partially financially supported by Tommy’s National Centre for Miscarriage Research.
Disclaimer The funders will take no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of publications.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient and public involvement Patients and/or the public were involved in the design, or conduct, or reporting, or dissemination plans of this research. Please refer to the Methods section for further details.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval West Midlands South Birmingham Research Ethics Committee: 16/WM/0423.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.