NIHR Women’s Health Challenge: Supporting prioritisation through intelligence synthesis

We found 31 clinical trial registrations and 34 funding records either entirely or partly set within the UK that met our eligibility criteria. Most of these focused on interventions that take place during the antenatal period and around half of all included records were for randomised controlled trials (RCTs). Only 12 of 31 clinical trial registrations and 13 of 34 funding records listed a patient-reported outcome measure as part of the study. Only 5 of 31 clinical trial registrations and 1 of 34 funding records listed a patient-reported experience measure as part of the study. We found little evidence of either clinical trial registrations or funding records mentioning ways in which demographic variables that can contribute to health inequalities were being considered or addressed. Only 2 of 31 clinical trial registrations and 5 of 34 funding records considered the potential impact of the PROGRESS-Plus domain race, ethnicity, culture or language. Future research surrounding maternity services in the UK should aim to include patient-reported outcome measures and patient-reported experience measures, as well as state how different demographic variables that may contribute to health inequalities will be considered.