Sustainable Rural Maternity Care:  A Comprehensive Approach to Program Planning
August 2005-December 2007

Jude, Stefan, Shelagh, and Evelyn prepare to head to Bella Coola for data collection

Research Team

Principal Investigators: Jude Kornelsen and Stefan Grzybowski
Support Team:  Shelagh Levangie, Kate LeBlanc, Lana Sullivan, Evelyn Eng

Funding Agencies

Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute

Communities

Masset/Old Masset, Queen Charlotte City/Skidegate, Bella Coola

Project Summary

The goal of this project is to support the community-based development of a sustainable model of rural maternity service that meets the needs of women, families & communities, care providers, and administrators/decision-makers.  Using a Logic Model framework, the research team has engaged multiple stakeholders in in-depth interviews, focus groups and community forums to learn of their perceptions around maternity services in their communities.

Specific objectives include:

1. identifying resources (human, community, organizational) both currently applied to supporting local pregnant women and needed to support birth within the community;
2. identifying activities (processes, events, technology and actions) both currently undertaken with local pregnant women and needed to support birth within the community;
3. identifying products (types, levels and targets of services) necessary to support local maternity care;
4. identifying micro-changes (in behaviour, knowledge, skills and status) of key stakeholders necessary to support local maternity care;
5. identifying macro-changes (organizationally, community or systems-based) anticipated as a result of local maternity service delivery; and
6. identifying assumptions (principles, beliefs and ideas) about current and possible maternity care delivery systems for women within the community.

Project Update

Phase I of the project involved data collection in the three communities through interviews and focus groups (January 2006).  Phase II saw the research team return to the communities to present their findings in an interactive community-forum, where participants were encouraged to provide feedback and insights on research themes that emerged in the analysis of transcripts (June 2006).

The research team is currently in Phase III of the research project.  This will involve distribution of a survey to determine whether the themes that emerged in Phase II are generalizable to other communities of comparable size.

Most recently, the research team participated in the Society of Rural Physicians of Canada (SRPC) Annual Meeting to present on the process we undertook to conduct this project.  The workshop was well attended and we were delighted to share our experiences with those who provide care in rural environments.

Upcoming Activities

The research team has submitted abstracts to the Family Medicine Forum (October 11-13, 2007) and Society of Academic Primary Care (July 3-6, 2007) for poster presentations of our research results.  We also hope to have a final report ready for distribution to our participants and policy makers once the project has been completed.