Identification of internal and external stressors in parents of newborns in intensive care

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify parents' self-reported stressors as they experience their baby's course in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Miles, Funk & Carlson (1993) Parental Stressor Scale: Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was used to survey 119 parents of neonatal infants, born at 24 weeks to full term, in the 28-bed level 3 NICU of a mid-Atlantic, Magnet-designated acute care hospital with 665 licensed beds. The newly developed Grosik, Snyder, Cleary and Tidwell NICU External Stressors and Stress Reduction Scale (2006), a 5-point Likert scale, was also used. Intrapersonal and interpersonal stressors were categorized as internal (occurring within the NICU) and extrapersonal (occurring outside the NICU) as external stressors. The findings were used to develop a new practice in the NICU to help reduce parental stressors.

Figure 1.

Abington Memorial Hospital External Stressors: Stressful experiences outside the hospital.

Figure 2.

Abington Memorial Hospital External Stressors and Reduction Scale: techniques to reduce stress.

Figure 3.

Abington Memorial Hospital Study Demographics.