Comparison of Mothers and Nurses Opinions on Quality of Nursing Care Provided to Parents with Hospitalized Premature Newborn in NICU

Current study conducted to compare mothers and nurses opinions on quality of nursing care provided to parents with hospitalized premature newborn in NICU. The birth of a premature baby can be an extreme shock for parents. Nurses are in a unique role to help parents as they provide care not only to the premature baby but also providing supportive care to the stressed parents. A comparative descriptive design was used. The study population consisted of all mothers with hospitalized premature newborn in NICU (n = 300) and all nurses (n = 32) in three teaching hospital (NICU) in Tabriz city (Iran) year 2010. Data were collected by NPST questionnaire validity of scale was determined by content validity with cooperation of ten faculty members of Nursing-Midwifery School of Tabriz and validity of translation assessed by one English language expert. Reliability of scale was evaluated with Cronbach s alpha (mothers = 0.9 and nurses = 0.96). MannWitney test showed that there have been significant differences between four dimension of nursing support from viewpoint of nurses and mothers. The most important area per nurses opinions were quality of care and emotional dimensions and per mother s opinions were quality of care and informational-communicational dimensions. The results of this study, confirmed that mothers need more emotional supports than they received and nurses and mothers opinions toward quality of nursing care provided to parents with hospitalized premature newborn in NICU are different. Considering results of this study, suggestion is for promotion of family centered care in neonatal intensive care units especially about emotional nursing interventions.