Rapid review of Allied Health Professionals working in neonatal services
Background and Context
Neonatal care is provided for both premature babies and infants up to the age of 28 days who may need extra support.
There are a number of different health professionals who work within neonatal services. These include dieticians, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech therapists – otherwise known as Allied Health Professionals (AHPs).
This review looked at the potential difference that these Allied Health Professionals have been making in neonatal services by considering.
- The effectiveness of neonatal services with Allied Health Professionals in the team compared to without them in the team
- The effectiveness of early care and support provided by Allied Health Professionals in neonatal units
Aims
This study aims to assess the impact of using Allied Health Professionals within neonatal services, measuring this alongside neonatal services without such professionals. The research could then be used to help with workforce planning and staffing of neonatal teams.
Strategy
A range of studies from 2016 to 2024 were reviewed as part of this study, including work from the Europe, North and South America and Asia.
Some of the studies compared outcomes before and after Allied Health Professionals were used in neonatal services and other studies looked at early interventions actively involving parents.
Outcomes
There was low-certainty (low reliability) evidence to suggest that having Allied Health Professionals within neonatal services led to improvements in gross motor skills (use of larger muscles in the body such as arms, legs and torso which enable standing, running and jumping) or earlier oral feeding (feeding by mouth) for young infants. The results looking at the impact of nutrition support teams in neonatal units were not able to draw any conclusions.
There was some moderate-certainty (moderate reliability) evidence to suggest that early care and support by Allied Health Professionals leads to shorter lengths of stay in hospital and earlier oral feeding, as well as small improvements in general cognitive (mental) and physical abilities compared to neonatal teams without Allied Health Professionals.
The evidence was weaker when looking at early interventions impacting parental stress.
Impact
This review supports the idea that the involvement of Allied Health Professionals in neonatal units is likely to improve outcomes, but exact numbers of staff required are not known. However, recommendations around the optimum number of staff required to make up the neonatal workforce (including Allied Health Professionals) are available from the British Association of Perinatal Medicine.
There was little directly relevant evidence available around the involvement of Allied Health Professionals in neonatal teams. Very few interventions reviewed were UK based, suggesting further UK based research is required to discover the best way to integrate Allied Health Professionals in neonatal services.
The lay summary was written by Melanie Mcaulay.
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