Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
Date Submitted: Sep 11, 2024
Date Accepted: Dec 23, 2024
Exploring Stress and Stress-Reduction with Caregivers and Clinicians in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A Qualitative Study to Inform Intervention Development
ABSTRACT
Background:
Parents and caregivers with preterm babies in the neonatal intensive care unit experience high levels of distress and are at an increased risk of anxiety, depression and acute stress disorders. Effective interventions to reduce this distress are well described in the literature, but this research has been conducted primarily in Europe and North America. To our knowledge, few interventions of this sort have been developed in Australasia and none have been developed or tested in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Objective:
The primary aims of this study were to explore sources of stress with caregivers and clinicians in a neonatal intensive care unit in Aotearoa New Zealand and gather participant ideas on ways to reduce caregiver stress to inform intervention development.
Methods:
This qualitative design used an essentialist/realist methodology to generate findings aimed at future intervention development. One-on-one, in-depth interviews were completed either in person or through web-based teleconferencing to explore caregivers’ and clinicians’ perspectives. Thematic analysis (framework method) was used to analyze the data.
Results:
From our analysis of 23 interviews (10 clinicians and 13 caregivers), we identified six themes relevant to intervention development. Three themes focused on caregiver stress: (1) the emotional “rollercoaster” of NICU; (2) lack of support, both culturally and emotionally; and (3) caregivers feeling “left out” and confused. Three themes focused on participant-proposed solutions to reduce stress: (1) caregiver empowerment; (2) improving emotional support; and (3) communication on “my" terms (i.e. digitally).
Conclusions:
This study explored sources of caregiver stress in the NICU with caregivers and clinicians, and gathered participants’ ideas and feedback on ways to reduce stress to inform future intervention development. Proposed solutions by participants focused on increasing caregiver empowerment, improving emotional and cultural support, and providing information in digital, mobile-friendly formats.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.