Effect of Nursing Support on Perceived Stress among Parents of Preterm Infants in South-East of Iran

Objective: When a premature infant is hospitalized, parents experience lots of stresses. So, nursing support is needed to reduce parent's stresses. Specifying parent's stress and nursing support can be useful for improving quality of care. Thus the current study was conducted to examine the relationship between parental stress and nursing support.

Methods: In this study descriptive correlational design was employed. Using NPST (Nurse Parent Support Tool) and PSS (Parent Stressor Scale) questionnaires perceived nursing support and parenteral stress of 154 parents (77mothers and 77 fathers) of hospitalized premature infants in NICU of Afzalipur hospital in Kerman - Iran was evaluated. Data analysis was done with spss19.

Findings: Results showed that there was a negative correlation between nursing support and stress in category of "emotional support and parental role alteration"(P=0.009, r=0.209). Results revealed that in all categories of NPST mothers received more nursing support than fathers. While, in all category of PSS except "infant's appearance and behavior" fathers stress was more than mothers. Generally, fathers experienced more stress and receive less support.

Conclusion: According to the results nursing support can reduce parental stress. Hence, to providing high quality care it is necessary for nurses to be aware of individual differences and stressors of newborn parents' in neonatal intensive care unit.