Dr Donna Austin is an Advanced Critical Care Practitioner in Paediatric Intensive Care at University Hospital Southampton and part of the Research Leaders Programme.

Her research is exploring parents’ experiences of paediatric intensive care with a child who has additional needs or medical complexity.

Driven by parents

As part of her clinical role in the paediatric intensive care unit (PICU), Donna cares for children with multiple and complex health needs. This population of children is increasing within paediatric services and in PICU.

“Children who are born extremely preterm, or with multiple congenital abnormalities or chronic conditions can sometimes require PICU,” says Donna. “Due to improved technology and understanding of these conditions, many of these children are surviving longer, when in the past they would have sadly passed away. Additionally, they can require multiple PICU admissions in their lifetime, which means that the support families require can be very different.”

Their care is delivered by many different teams across the hospital, who their families often know very well. However, the same is not always true when they come to PICU.

“We often don’t know these families before they come to us,” says Donna. “We have to develop a very quick relationship with them, and potentially deliver difficult news at a time when they’re feeling really vulnerable.”

Donna’s research is exploring the experiences of these children’s families when they visit PICU. She’s focussing on the parents’ experiences, as children in PICU are normally too ill to talk.

She also plans to explore the experiences of the staff who care for these children.

For her RLP journey, Donna is developing a research study, in partnership with a public involvement group of parents who have children with additional needs or medical complexity.

“I don’t think there’s any step I can take without input from my public involvement group, because it needs to be driven by the people who are experiencing this,” she says. “If we don’t understand what the parents of these children need, we can’t deliver what is right for them.”

Research led by nurses

Donna strongly believes that, while medical research led by doctors is important, research on how to improve patients’ care should be led by nurses.

“Having been a parent in hospital, the things I remember are the good quality care, not the medicines that were given to my child,” she says. "It was how people made me feel. I think that’s something that needs exploring more, and nurses are the right people to do that.”

Donna has been involved in research throughout her nursing career. She did a part-time PhD alongside her clinical work in PICU, and has been involved in many national research projects.

She recently finished a one year Researcher Enhancement Award, jointly funded by NIHR ARC Wessex and the Southampton Academy of Research (SoAR). This allowed her to dedicate 40% of her time to research.

It gave her the time to figure out where she wanted to take her own research. She spoke to researchers across the country, and did a scoping review to define her research question.

Donna’s now taking this research forward as part of her RLP award. She hopes to inspire other nurses to work in research, as she says it allows them to take ownership of the care they deliver.

“Although I work in a slightly more medical role now, I’m a nurse at heart,” she says. “I’m passionate that nurses should be leaders in their field, and we should be changing practice.”

Supporting others

Donna not only aims to use her RLP to develop her own research, but also to support other nurses to follow in her footsteps.

“The RLP lends itself to both those areas. It gives me the time and the headspace to be able to deliver research on an area that I’m passionate about. It also gives me the skills to be able to support other people in the future to be able to do these sorts of research programmes.”

Her own support network has included Professors Alison Richardson and Lynn Calman from SoAR. She’s also had support and encouragement from previous RLP award holders, including Dr Luise Marino and Dr Jessica Bate.

“I’ve been really fortunate throughout my career that there have been some really great people championing me,” she says. “Nurse researchers are few and far between, and I’ve had some amazing nurse researchers that have harnessed my enthusiasm and talent, and helped me along the way. I really hope I can do that for other people in the future.”

Donna is now supporting two other advanced practitioners, both trained nurses, through their NIHE ARC Wessex Internships, similar to the award that she has just completed. She hopes to use her RLP award to encourage and support other nurses to explore a research career.

“Ultimately I want to make the care better for the families we look after in PICU, and I hope that other people want to do that in their areas too,” she says. “My goal is to support them to do that.”