The Effects of Preterm Infant Care Education on Stress Among theMothers of Preterm Infants Hospitalized in Neonatal Intensive CareUnits

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Hospitalization in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) causes mothers high levels of stress and endangersmaternal and infantile health. The current study aimed at examining the effects of preterm infant care education on stressamong the mothers of such infants hospitalized in NICU.Methods: The current randomized, controlled trial was conducted in 2017 on a convenience sample of mothers whose preterminfants were hospitalized in the NICU of Vali - e - Asr teaching Hospital, Birjand, Iran. Mothers were randomly assigned to eitherthe control or experimental group through the drawing method. Mothers in the experimental group received preterm infant careeducation plus routine care services, while their counterparts in the control group only received the routine care services. All ofthem completed the parental stressor scale: NICU both before and 10 days after the intervention. For data analysis, the paired -samples t, the independent - samples t, the Mann - Whitney U, and the Wilcoxon tests were used with SPSS version 19.0.Results: Ten days after the intervention, no significant intragroup differences were observed regarding the mean scores of the twodomains of maternal stress; i e, infants’ appearance and behaviors and maternal relationships with infant (P > 0.05). However,the mean scores of maternal stress and its environmental domain in the experimental group were significantly lower than thoseof the control group (P < 0.05). In addition, the pretest - posttest mean differences of maternal stress and all its domains in theexperimental group were significantly greater than those of the control group (P < 0.05).Conclusions: Preterm infant care education to mothers significantly alleviated their stress. Educational hospital managers canimprove maternal and infantile outcomes through facilitating maternal education about preterm infant care.