A Study on Attitude and Practice of Maternal Child Health Nurses Regarding the Use of Kangaroo Mother Care in Selected Hospitals at Mysore

Background: Kangaroo Mother Care is the method of holding an infant with skin to skin contact, prone and upright on the chest of the parents. This method was described as human incubator for low birth weight babies. Since large number of deliveries occur in hospital now a days we require that sufficient knowledge should be created enough to mothers regarding "quality mothering" through natural and universally approved easily applicable way of Kangaroo Mother Care among staff nurses. Neonatal nurses, however, play a pivotal role in facilitating the attachment process by promoting early parentinfant contact through encouraging parents to touch, hold and care for their infant as well as establishing collaborative and positive relationships with the parents

Methods: The research approach and design adopted for the study was descriptive survey approach. The population consisted of maternal child health nurses in Mysore. Purposive sampling technique was used. The data was collected using personal profile, structured attitude scale. Structured practice checklist is used to assess the attitude and practice of maternal child health nurses regarding the use of kangaroo mother

Results: Majority (50%) of the maternal child health nurses belong to the age group of 20-25 years and majority (96.67 %) of them were females. 80% of the participants belong to Hindu religion. Majority (90%) of them had their educational qualifications as Diploma in nursing and majority (46.67%) had clinical experience below 5 years. The mean score is 35.03 with standard deviation of 6.56. Practice scores of maternal child health nurses ranged from 4-11. The mean score is 8.433 with standard deviation of 2.04. Majority (93.33%) of maternal and child health nurses had positive attitude and only 4(6.7%) had negative attitude towards use of kangaroo mother care. Majority (66.7%) of maternal and child health nurses had poor practice and only 20(33.3%) had good practice in the use of kangaroo mother care.

Conclusion: The recent concept of Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) or the skin to skin care is an economical, acceptable and practical way for maintaining temperature of the LBW neonates. Promoting kangaroo mother care is one way neonatal nurses can enhance closeness between parent and infant. In the present study, majority of maternal child health nurses reported of positive attitude, but it is not practiced in their clinical setting. Hence, the purpose of this study was to survey the attitude and practice of maternal child health nurses in the use of kangaroo mother care and examine in greater depth, issues and concerns nurses may have in promoting KMC in their area of clinical practice.