Neonatal Clinical Care Unit, King Edward Memorial Hospital and Princess Margaret Hospital, Women and Newborn Health Service, Subiaco, WA, Australia.
Department Nursing and Midwifery Education and Research, Women and Newborn Health Service, Subiaco, WA, Australia.
J Clin Nurs. 2018 Jan;27(1-2):269-277. doi: 10.1111/jocn.13883. Epub 2017 Sep 3.
To explore the experiences of parents with babies born between 28-32 weeks' gestation during transition through the neonatal intensive care unit and discharge to home.
Following birth of a preterm baby, parents undergo a momentous journey through the neonatal intensive care unit prior to their arrival home. The complexity of the journey varies on the degree of prematurity and problems faced by each baby. The neonatal intensive care unit environment has many stressors and facilitating education to assist parents to feel ready for discharge can be challenging for all health professionals.
Qualitative descriptive design.
The project included two phases, pre- and postdischarge, to capture the experiences of 20 couples (40 parents), whilst their baby was a neonatal intensive care unit inpatient and then after discharge. Face-to-face interviews, an online survey and telephone interviews were employed to gather parent's experiences. Constant comparative analysis was used to identify commonalities between experiences. Recruitment and data collection occurred from October 2014-February 2015.
RESULTS/FINDINGS: Overlapping themes from both phases revealed three overarching concepts: effective parent staff communication; feeling informed and involved; and being prepared to go home.
Our findings can be used to develop strategies to improve the neonatal intensive care unit stay and discharge experience for parents. Proposed strategies would be to improve information transfer, promote parental contact with the multidisciplinary team, encourage input from fathers to identify their needs and facilitate parental involvement according to individual needs within families.
Providing information to parents during their time in hospital, in a consistent and timely manner is an essential component of their preparation when transitioning to home.
探索在早产儿从新生儿重症监护病房（NICU）过渡到出院回家期间，父母的体验。
早产儿出生后，父母要经历一段重大的旅程，从新生儿重症监护病房到回家。旅程的复杂性取决于早产儿的成熟程度和每个婴儿面临的问题。新生儿重症监护病房环境有许多压力源，为了帮助父母为出院做好准备而提供教育可能对所有医疗保健专业人员都是一项挑战。
定性描述设计。
该项目包括两个阶段，即住院前和出院后，以捕捉 20 对夫妇（40 位父母）的体验，同时他们的婴儿是新生儿重症监护病房的住院患者，然后出院后。采用面对面访谈、在线调查和电话访谈收集父母的体验。使用恒比分析来识别体验中的共性。招募和数据收集于 2014 年 10 月至 2015 年 2 月进行。
结果/发现：两个阶段的重叠主题揭示了三个总体概念：父母与医护人员的有效沟通；感到知情和参与；以及为回家做好准备。
我们的发现可以用于制定策略来改善父母在新生儿重症监护病房的住院和出院体验。建议的策略是改善信息传递，促进父母与多学科团队的接触，鼓励父亲提供意见，以确定他们的需求，并根据家庭的个别需求促进父母的参与。
在医院期间以一致和及时的方式向父母提供信息是他们过渡到家庭时做好准备的重要组成部分。
