The effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the Family Nurse Partnership home visiting programme for first time teenage mothers in England: a protocol for the Building Blocks randomised controlled trial

Abstract

BackgroundThe Nurse Family Partnership programme was developed in the USA where it is made available to pregnant young mothers in some socially deprived geographic areas. The related Family Nurse Partnership programme was introduced in England by the Department of Health in 2006 with the aim of improving outcomes for the health, wellbeing and social circumstances of young first-time mothers and their children.Methods / designThis multi-centre individually randomised controlled trial will recruit 1600 participants from 18 Primary Care Trusts in England, United Kingdom. The trial will evaluate the effectiveness of Family Nurse Partnership programme and usual care versus usual care for nulliparous pregnant women aged 19 or under, recruited by 24 weeks gestation and followed until the child’s second birthday. Data will be collected from participants at baseline, 34-36 weeks gestation, 6, 12, 18 and 24 months following birth. Routine clinical data will be collected from maternity, primary care and hospital episodes statistics. Four primary outcomes are to be reported from the trial: birth weight; prenatal tobacco use; child emergency attendances and/or admissions within two years of birth; second pregnancy within two years of first birth.DiscussionThis trial will evaluate the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of the Family Nurse Partnership in England. The findings will provide evidence on pregnancy and early childhood programme outcomes for policy makers, health professionals and potential recipients in three domains (pregnancy and birth, child health and development, and parental life course and self-sufficiency) up to the child’s second birthday.Trial registrationTrial registration number: ISRCTN 23019866

The Determinants of Human Capital Formation During the Early Years of Life: Theory, Measurement, and Policies

“…15. Such as, for instance, the Nurse Family Partnership in the United States, which has been evaluated in a number of randomized controlled trials (see, for instance, Olds 2006;Olds et al 2007Olds et al , 2010aEckenrode et al 2010;Kitzman et al 2010;Owen-Jones et al 2013). A similar program, the Family Nurse Partnership, is being evaluated in the United Kingdom (see Owen-Jones et al 2013). of the timing of exposure: the children of the treated girls (but not boys) seemed to be growing faster.…”

“…A similar program, the Family Nurse Partnership, is being evaluated in the United Kingdom (see Owen‐Jones et al. ).…”

Challenges in accessing routinely collected data from multiple providers in the UK for primary studies: Managing the morass.

“…The Building Blocks Trial (BB:0-2) was a Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) assessing the effectiveness of the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) home-visiting programme when added to usual care, as compared with usual care alone, for young mothers and their first child living in England. The trial utilised prospective data collection along with use of routinelycollected data from birth records, GP practices, abortion data, death data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and hospital data from NHS Digital (NHSD) (at the time, Health and Social Care Information Centre) (14,15). Participants provided their explicit consent for data linkage.…”

Evaluation of the effectiveness of the Family Nurse Partnership home visiting programme in first time young mothers in Scotland: a protocol for a natural experiment

“…A phased process of programme replication (adaptation to local context, pilot testing for feasibility and acceptability, randomised controlled trial (RCT), replication and expansion) underpins the adoption of the NFP in non-US settings. In England, the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) programme was introduced in April 2007 across 10 pilot sites and was evaluated in the Building Blocks RCT (BB:0-2) at 18 sites which reported in October 2015 [19,20]. The primary outcomes measured (as selected on the basis of three US trials and government priorities) were smoking in late pregnancy, birthweight, child admissions to hospital including A&E attendance before their second birthday and subsequent pregnancies within 24 months of the mother's first child being born.…”