Parent-focused outcomes
| Parent-focused outcome domains | Number of studies discussing outcome domain (n=62) | Outcome | Number of studies discussing outcome (n=62) | Verbatim text extract |
| Parental support | 30 | Coping with maternal illness | 5 | One nurse spoke of her belief that mothers could be diagnosed with depressive conditions. 62 |
| Culture differences | 2 | Three families felt strongly that their stress derived from differences in the medical management approaches between the USA and their homeland. 65 | ||
| Parental ability to work | 2 | They liked being back at work because it helped occupy their minds, but they reported being exhausted. 66 | ||
| Parental competence | 4 | ‘We learned everything we needed and knew what we had to do, I was quite comfortable when we went home.’ 47 | ||
| Parental involvement | 10 | ‘During our baby’s stay in the neonatal unit both myself and Peter were fully involved in our son’s care and did most of the caring such as nappy changing and NGT feeds.’ 51 | ||
| Support from family and friends | 5 | ‘My mother in law and my mother both would watch my older daughter that first year quite a bit while I would take my daughter to therapy.’ 45 | ||
| Support from fathers | 2 | “Fathers ranged from being very supportive, ‘[we’re] in this together,’ to being deterrents or completely absent.” 66 | ||
| Support from healthcare professionals | 6 | ‘The nursing staff, the doctors…they really know what they’re doing…not only medically, but dealing with us personally…that helped a lot.’ 67 | ||
| Other outcomes only in 1 paper | Balancing caring for themselves and their baby: barriers to parental involvement: care provided close to home: maintaining hope: online support: preparation for NICU admission: support from faith | |||
| Other outcomes | Long-term effects on parents | 2 | We should be looking at Postnatal Depression after the baby goes home… Once they actually get a baby home, that’s when the reality sets in. All the triggers are there. 62 | |
| Other outcomes only in 1 paper | Support beyond NICU: parental perception of uncertainty | |||
NGT, nasogastric tube; NICU, neonatal intensive care unit.