Priorities for research in miscarriage: a priority setting partnership between people affected by miscarriage and professionals following the James Lind Alliance methodology
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVES: To identify and prioritise important research questions for miscarriage. DESIGN: A priority setting partnership using prospective surveys and consensus meetings following methods advocated by the James Lind Alliance. SETTING: UK. PARTICIPANTS: Women and those affected by miscarriage working alongside healthcare professionals. RESULTS: In the initial survey, 1093 participants (932 women who have experienced miscarriage, 8 partners, 17 family members, friends or colleagues, 104 healthcare professionals and eight charitable organisations) submitted 3279 questions. A review of existing literature identified a further 64. Non-questions were removed, and the remaining questions were categorised and summarised into 58 questions. In an interim electronic survey, 2122 respondents chose their top 10 priorities from the 58 summary questions. The 25 highest ranked in the survey were prioritised at a final face-to-face workshop. In summary, the top 10 priorities were ranked as follows: research into preventative treatment, emotional aspects in general, investigation, relevance of pre-existing medical conditions, emotional support as a treatment, importance of lifestyle factors, importance of genetic and chromosomal causes, preconception tests, investigation after different numbers of miscarriage and male causal factors. CONCLUSIONS: These results should be the focus of future miscarriage research. Presently, studies are being conducted to address the top priority; however, many other priorities, especially psychological and emotional support, are less well researched areas. We hope our results will encourage both researchers and funders to focus on these priorities.
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Events in early pregnancy have a significant impact on pregnancy outcomes.
“It is increasingly clear that events in early pregnancy have a significant impact on pregnancy outcomes. 97-100”
From Miscarriage matters: the epidemiological, physical, psychological, and economic costs of early pregnancy loss (2021) · cites this paper as [98]
The Introduction (page unavailable) reports that most miscarriages occur in the first trimester and describes factors associated with miscarriage, supporting a narrower point about early pregnancy loss. The Discussion, under “Comparison with previous research” (page unavailable), groups miscarriage with other adverse reproductive outcomes but does not establish that early-pregnancy events significantly affect pregnancy outcomes generally. (LLM, conf=0.77)
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- Authors
- Prior, M., Bagness, C., Brewin, J., Coomarasamy, A., Easthope, L., Hepworth-Jones, B., Hinshaw, K., O'Toole, E., Orford, J., Regan, L., Raine-Fenning, N., Shakespeare, J., Small, R., Thornton, J., & Metcalf, L.
- Affiliations
- University of Nottingham (GB)
- Royal College of Nursing (GB)
- Tommy's (GB)
- University of Birmingham (GB)
- University of Lincoln (GB)
- The Miscarriage Association, Wakefield, UK
- Sunderland Royal Hospital (GB)
- Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Women's Voices Involvement Panel, London, UK
- Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (GB)
- Division of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, School of Clinical Sciences, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK
- Retired, Oxford, UK
- Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust (GB)
- National Institute for Health and Care Research (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Prior, Matthew
- ORCID
- Venue
- BMJ Open
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2017-08
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 8
- Pages
- e016571
- ISSN
- 2044-6055 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC5629698
- OpenAlex
- W2747087713
- Cited by
- 56
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 3
- FWCI
- 2.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by-nc
- Locations
- BMJ Open (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Nottingham ePrints (University of Nottingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Repository@Nottingham (University of Nottingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Spiral (Imperial College London) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Funders
- Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
- University of Nottingham
- Royal College of Nursing
- The Miscarriage Association
- Tommy's Baby Charity
- Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › Reproductive System and Pregnancy
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Reproductive Health and Contraception
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Delphi Technique in Research
- Keywords
- miscarriage, research priorities, James Lind Alliance, priority setting partnership, emotional support, psychological support, lifestyle factors, healthcare workers
- MeSH terms
- Abortion, Spontaneous, Emotions, Family, Female, United Kingdom, Health Personnel, Health Priorities, Humans, Male, Pregnancy, Prospective Studies, Surveys and Questionnaires, Social Support, Consensus, Friends, Biomedical Research
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