Arendt, Molly2024-05-212024-05-212022https://hdl.handle.net/2440/140891This item is only available electronically.Background: In Australia, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) has often been misrepresented, resulting in issues with prevention, diagnosis and care. Utilising stakeholder feedback to improve healthcare has been successful with other chronic illnesses, though has not yet been applied to FASD in an Australian context. Aims: To explore and summarise Australian stakeholders’ perspectives and recommendations concerning the diagnosis and management of FASD and to determine whether these recommendations are being utilised in Australian healthcare. Methods and Procedures: Six-step reflexive thematic analysis was utilised to analyse 69 publicly available written submissions to the 2019 Federal Australian Senate Inquiry into FASD. Subsequently, directed content analysis was employed to determine whether stakeholders’ FASD recommendations have been enacted in Australia. Outcomes and Results: A prevention-related superordinate theme - ‘FASD does not have to happen’ – was generated, under which three themes, each with subthemes, were generated: ‘Health professionals inadvertently perpetuate FASD stereotypes’, ‘Mitigating risk without stigmatising pregnant women is vital’, and ‘Community awareness reduces the burden of disease’. The content analysis demonstrated limited implementation of stakeholders’ recommendations in FASD care in Australia. Conclusions and Implications: FASD prevention is possible; however, appropriate health professional education and mandatory protocols for effective alcohol labelling are needed.Masters; Psychology; HealthThesis