Arasteh Naeime, Moghimian Shahrbabaki Reihane, Nematollahi Monirsadat, Ahmadi Atefe, Bagherian Behnaz
Nursing Research Center, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
Reproductive and Family Health Research Center, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran.
Front Psychol. 2025 Jan 7;15:1346661. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1346661. eCollection 2024.
The birth and admission of a premature infant to the NICU is often an unexpected experience and a mental and spiritual challenge for families. Spiritual health is an influential factor affecting how a mother faces and endures a stressful situation. Improving the mother's spiritual health requires cognitive therapy approaches, including mindfulness techniques. Nurses can help mothers of infants admitted to the NICU to go through the hospitalization period more peacefully by using mindfulness techniques. To this end, the present study sought to investigate the effect of a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) program on spiritual health in mothers of infants admitted to the NICU.
This quasi-experimental study was conducted using a pre-test-post-test design in two intervention and control groups. The participants were 50 mothers of infants admitted to the NICU of Afzalipur Hospital, Kerman, who were selected via convenience sampling and randomly divided into two control and intervention groups (25 mothers in each group). The intervention involved providing counseling using a short-term mindfulness-based cognitive therapy program carried out in four 2-h sessions for the participants in the intervention group. The participants in the control group received routine NICU care. The participants in both groups completed a demographic information questionnaire and the Spiritual WellBeing Scale (SWBS) before and after the intervention. The collected data were analyzed with SPSS-25 software.
The data showed no statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of demographic characteristics ( > 0.05). Moreover, the mean score of spiritual health in the intervention group was 92.80 ± 12.14 and that of the control group was 92.16 ± 16.35 before the intervention. The mean score of spiritual health in the intervention group was 104.04 ± 6.60 and that of the control group was 92.56 ± 16.35 after the intervention. The results of the paired samples -test revealed a statistically significant difference in the mean scores of spiritual health and its dimensions before and after the intervention in the intervention group ( < 0.001).
The findings from the present study indicated that mindfulness-based cognitive therapy intervention was effective in improving the spiritual health of mothers with infants admitted to the NICU. NICU nurses can use mindfulness-based cognitive therapy as a practical intervention to improve the spiritual health of mothers of premature infants and promote the sense of meaningfulness and meaning of life in these mothers.
早产儿出生并入住新生儿重症监护病房（NICU）对家庭来说往往是一次意外经历，也是一种心理和精神上的挑战。精神健康是影响母亲面对和承受压力情况方式的一个重要因素。改善母亲的精神健康需要认知疗法，包括正念技巧。护士可以通过运用正念技巧，帮助入住NICU的婴儿的母亲更平静地度过住院期。为此，本研究旨在探讨基于正念的认知疗法（MBCT）项目对入住NICU的婴儿母亲精神健康的影响。
本准实验研究采用前测-后测设计，分为两个干预组和对照组。参与者为克尔曼省阿夫扎利普尔医院NICU收治的50名婴儿的母亲，通过便利抽样选取，并随机分为两个对照组和干预组（每组25名母亲）。干预措施包括为干预组的参与者提供基于短期正念的认知疗法咨询，该疗法分四个2小时的疗程进行。对照组的参与者接受常规NICU护理。两组参与者在干预前后均完成一份人口统计学信息问卷和精神幸福感量表（SWBS）。收集的数据使用SPSS - 25软件进行分析。
数据显示两组在人口统计学特征方面无统计学显著差异（>0.05）。此外，干预前干预组精神健康的平均得分是92.80±12.14，对照组为92.16±16.35。干预后干预组精神健康的平均得分是104.04±6.60，对照组为92.56±16.35。配对样本检验结果显示，干预组干预前后精神健康及其维度的平均得分存在统计学显著差异（<0.001）。
本研究结果表明，基于正念的认知疗法干预对改善入住NICU的婴儿母亲的精神健康有效。NICU护士可以将基于正念的认知疗法作为一种切实可行的干预措施，来改善早产儿母亲的精神健康，并提升这些母亲的生活意义感和使命感。
