Parent transition from the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) to home

Abstract

<p>The purpose of this descriptive study was to describe parental responses to caring for infants in the home following their infant's discharge from the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The study's methodological design was naturalistic inquiry. Data were collected via tape recordings during home visits (weeks one and four after discharge) to ten families. Data were analyzed for themes, patterns, and categories. Five mutually exclusive categories emerged: (1) Informational Needs; (2) Anticipatory Grief; (3) Parent-Child Development; (4) Stress and Coping; and (5) Social Support. These five concepts provide the foundation of a beginning theoretical framework to help understand the parental perceptions and concerns regarding the phenomenon of parent transition from the NICU to home. The parental responses followed Rubin's and Mercer's developmental tasks; Walker's with adoptive parents and expanded by Perez-Woods; Fishbein's Expectancy-Value Model and Hadley's theoretical framework. Several hypotheses emerged. Parents taking an infant home from the NICU will: (1) Experience an increase in confidence in their parenting skills over time at home with the infant; (2) Not view friends as an important source of support; (3) View the spouse and extended family members as an important source of social support affecting parent coping; (4) Generally view the NICU environment and staff as a source of negative social support; (5) Manifest perceptions of the event of parent transition from the NICU to home as different from a parent's viewpoint than a health care professional's viewpoint (as voiced by parents); (6) Not view the number of other children as related to the parent's perception of the transition to home; (7) Manifest a desire to have a role in infant care and clear guidelines for their role; (8) Manifest a desire for information regarding their infant's care; (9) Not view the severity of infant's condition as related to amount of parental concern; (10) Not view the infant's length of stay in the NICU as related to amount of parental concern. The hypotheses build a theoretical base from which the phenomenon of parent transition can be explored and validated. Further systematic research is needed. Recommendations were cited.</p>