Oxygen is a life-saving therapy. But small and sick newborns are particularly susceptible to adverse consequences from receiving too much or too little oxygen.
The 2023 World Health Assembly resolution for Increasing Access to Medical Oxygen highlighted the importance of:
“safe medical oxygen use to prevent injury from toxic levels of oxygen in the blood, which can result in retinopathy of prematurity (one of the leading causes of child blindness) and chronic lung disease”, and
“ research, including translational research, to improve access to and the quality and safety of medical oxygen in health care settings”.
Whilst barriers and strategies for improving access to oxygen supply have been described, strategies for providing safe and effective oxygen therapy for newborns in resource-limited settings are lacking.
The expertise of a diverse group of participants whose work directly or indirectly affects the provision of oxygen for newborns:
Biomedical engineers
Doctors
Health administrators
Midwives
Non-governmental organizations
Nurses
Policymakers (local, national, international)
Researchers
If you have at least 2 years' experience working in any of the above roles, we want to hear your opinions. This includes work involving rural or urban settings, and private or public healthcare centres.
This eDelphi study will involve 3 rounds of online surveys, designed to elicit perspectives on:
Key barriers to safe and effective oxygen therapy for newborns
Potential solutions
Essential components required for safe oxygen therapy in different contexts
Training and education needs
Maintenance and troubleshooting considerations
Research and innovation priorities
These surveys will take up to half-an-hour each and be released sequentially, beginning in August 2025. Participants will be offered a USD $50 gift card upon completetion of all 3 surveys, in recognition of this time commitment.
This is a short survey to determine your eligibility for the study. The information you provide in this form will be retained for research and contact purposes. Your responses will be kept confidential.
If you are eligible, you may be contacted and invited to participate in the study.
Should you agree to participate, you will be invited to provide consultation in three rounds of online surveys.
In round 1, you will provide free-text responses covering a range of implementation and research priorities for safe newborn oxygen therapy. In rounds 2 and 3, you will be asked to rank statements that draw from the responses of participants in previous rounds. Surveys will be sequentially released from August 2025 for approximately 4 months. Each survey will take up to half-an-hour to complete.
As compensation for your participation you will be reimbursed USD $50 (or equivalent) once all 3 rounds are completed. You may nominate this to be paid to a charitable organisation on your behalf.
A Delphi study involves consulting a diverse group of experts, and seeking their feedback on other participants anonymous responses, to reveal patterns of agreement in communities. This is done through multiple surveys, where anonymous participant responses are collected, synthesised, and reflected to the same participants in subsequent surveys to identify consensus, or contrasting opinions.
This study has been approved by the Royal Children's Hospital Research Ethics and Governance Office, MCC DERP Reference number: 4302