These provinces differ in their screening selleckchem programme composition and organisation. Ontario has the largest screening programme in Canada, and Newborn Screening Ontario (NSO) currently screens for 28 disorders. NSO screens over 140 000 samples per year, with approximately 1300 screen positive referrals, of which around 150 are confirmed at diagnosis. Newfoundland and Labrador screens for only six conditions. With roughly 4500 births per
year, this generates approximately 40–50 screen positive referrals, with approximately two true positives annually. Integrating findings from multiple stakeholders at two sites, we are able to strengthen the impact of results through the triangulation we achieve with multiple perspectives. Identification and recruitment of participants Parents Parents will be eligible for inclusion if they are over 18 years of age, their child has undergone newborn screening within either ON or NL during the past year, they currently reside in ON or NL, and can converse fluently in English or French. We will exclude parents where information is available, if the child is severely ill, has died or is under the care of Children’s Aid or has been adopted. In addition, due to a lack of clinical outcome information
in screen negative children, where records allow, we will exclude parents if their child was born at <35 weeks gestation or was transfusion positive. Both of these are indicators of poor health outcomes and invitation to interview may be distressing for the parents. Parents will be identified through a purposive sampling approach.37 46 We will identify parents on the basis of screening result (normal, false positive, true positive, or declined). For example, while the literature suggests that a number of parents may not see screening as a choice, those parents who actively decline screening may be qualitatively different to those accepting screening. Furthermore, given study findings that false positive results may have harms for parents, and that these may be mitigated
Dacomitinib to an extent by effective communication by professionals—as may be expected within a consent process—then the experiences of parents whose children have positive screening results should be sought and necessarily compared to true positives and true negatives in order to differentiate issues specifically relevant to the false positive result. As such, we are deliberately identifying parents based on presumed differences in attitude or expectations generated by the screening result. The process of purposively identifying potential participants may, therefore, also be considered a process of maximum variation sampling due to the deliberate seeking of parents who may have opposing or contrasting experiences and perspectives.47 All parents will be identified through records held by each provincial screening programme.