The hospitalized preterm newborn: The significance of parents' participation in the Neonatal Unit

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: to identify and analyze the significance of participation for parents in a Neonatal Unit (NU) of a maternity hospital in San Luis Potosí, Mexico. METHOD: a qualitative study with 20 parents of both sexes, between 18 and 39 years of age, with a preterm hospitalized child. A content analysis using a thematic approach was used for information processing. RESULTS: the significance of: a) the NICU as a place of suffering and waiting, b) dealing with the child's admittance, c) being excluded from the hospitalized child's care and d) being aware of inadequacies in the child's care. CONCLUSION: parents deal with their suffering and experience barriers that impede their participation; they respond to the medical hierarchy that limits participation, even when it goes against their natural role as parents. The caregiving philosophy needs to be transformed so that parents are considered people with the right to participate and to be competent in caring for their child.

Meanings, beliefs and attitudes of the neonatal unit staff in México about the parents' participation in a neonatal unit: A qualitative approach

“…Findings in a qualitative study showed that the hospital system does not allow the fathers to have access to the NU because they consider them as a vehicle of infections [20] . In developed countries, studies have shown that there is a gender difference with respect to participation [22] .…”

“…Staff must also consider the parents' feelings, including the therapeutic aspects of mourning management. Parents' experiences in the NU involve suffering and hope when coping with the hospitalization of their child, along with satisfying the child's and their own emotional needs, as shown in qualitative studies from México, China and Australia [20,25,26] .…”

“…In this mixture submissiveness prevails. Thus, in regards to the poor initiative for parents' participation, this inclination may be linked to factors other than socio-demographic and economic characteristics, and because the parents assume they are below the medical hierarchy [20,30] . Similarly in a 100-family study, the caregivers represented one-third of all family caregivers of hospitalized children in another developing country, and most of them had a low level of education and poor socio-economic conditions [31] .…”

“…The five leading causes of hospitalization were as follows: Infected Newborn/Sepsis (13.8%), Respiratory Distress Syndrome (11.5%), Preterm Newborn (9.5%), Low APGAR or Neonatal Depression (2.6%), and Perinatal Asphyxia (2.5%). Demographic characteristics of the population the hospital cares for include young people with incomplete schooling, rural living, and lower social status [20] .…”

Devir Cuidadora De Prematuro E Os Dispositivos Constituintes Da Continuidade Da Atenção Pós-Alta

“…After this stage, we did a transversal reading, seeking to identify the units of meanings that were grouped into two empirical categories. 15 Prior to the field work, the research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, according to opinion of number 0339.0.203.000-11. The anonymity of the participants was guaranteed by coding their names (C1, C2, etc.)…”